Urban News

The Hindu 03.08.2009

A welcome tag for Delhi Metro

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: The training institute of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has received an ISO 9001:2008 certification, a validation from the International Organisation for Standardisation for maintaining standards in quality management system in training.

The Delhi Metro Training School was established in 2002 and is the only specialised training institute in South Asia in metro rail operations and maintenance technology. Located at Shastri Park, the institute has already trained more than 5,000 employees from operations and maintenance wing, CISF and Delhi police personnel, Bangalore metro, contractor’s staff (for ticketing, customer facilitation), customer relation assistants and other departments of the organisation.

According to the DMRC, so far this year 1,160 new staffers joined the training institute and 550 have already received training.

“The Metro Training Institute has 20 classrooms which can accommodate 600 trainees apart from a simulator room and a computer based training lab. In addition, there are two specialised working model rooms -- for understanding the working of signalling and automatic fare collection systems. One more simulator is being procured by the year end so that more train operators can get hand’s on experience of driving the metro train in a realistically simulated environment,” said a DMRC spokesperson.

Delhi Metro’s dedicated training institute has been awarded the ISO certificate for design, development and delivery of the training programme conducted by the institute. The training programme was initially developed with the help of the Hong Kong metro.

“The expertise of the Delhi Metro Training School will be useful for other cities such as Chennai, Kochi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ludhiana and Pune which are planning to develop metro rail systems in their cities since they could have access to the experience and facilities already available with the DMRC,” the spokesperson said.

The Hindu 03.08.2009

Municipal Corporation may get new Leader of House

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: After the BJP-led Municipal Corporation of Delhi got a new administration in place this year with Kanwar Sain replacing Arti Mehra as Delhi’s Mayor and Ram Kishan Singhal taking over as Standing Committee chairman from Vijender Gupta, the stage is now set for a new face to replace the incumbent Subhash Arya for the post of the Leader of the House in keeping with the trend.

According to sources, the names of former Standing Committee chairman Vijender Gupta and Ved Prakash Gupta, who has been the chairman of MCD Garden Committee, is doing the rounds for the post.

After BJP councillors were barred from filing nominations from the Delhi Assembly polls by the party high command, both Vijender Gupta and Arti Mehra had lobbied for tickets in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, with Mr. Vijender Gupta managing to secure a nomination from the Chandni Chowk parliamentary constituency.

However, he was defeated by senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal in the polls.

According to some BJP councillors, Mr. Vijender Gupta’s chances of getting the post are brighter, though given the fact that he got a ticket for the Lok Sabha polls might work against him. Ved Prakash Gupta on the other hand is said to be relying on strong support from some senior BJP leaders to see him through.

Meanwhile, councillors belonging to the BJP have filed their nominations for the posts of chairman and vice-chairman of 18 special and ad hoc committees of the MCD.

Saturday was the last date for filing the nominations and elections to these posts will be held on Monday and Tuesday at the meetings of their respective special and ad hoc committees at the MCD headquarters in Town Hall.