NEW DELHI: Despite being home to people from various parts of India, Delhiites lack a sense of belongingness towards the capital and should be more responsible to towards it, LG V K Saxena said on Tuesday. Addressing the 15th convocation ceremony of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University here, Saxena said, “Delhi as they say is the melting pot of India. With people from all over the country residing and working in the city, Delhi is indeed a mini-India. This indeed is a matter of pride for the city.”
However, the flip side of this pride of embodying India is that our sense of belongingness and ownership to and for Delhi has diminished over the years,” he said.
Noting that people from other states hold on to and feel proud of belonging to their native state, Saxena said the feeling is missing in Delhi. “We will have to start belonging to Delhi and own it. We will have to start owning Yamuna, our gardens, streets and neighbourhoods,” he said.
“We will have to start feeling responsible towards our city and proactively work towards achieving the goals of Delhi’s environmental sustainability, rejuvenation of the Yamuna, management of civic issues and judicious utilization of our resources,” he added.
The university awarded 24,181 undergraduate degrees, 3,833 postgraduate degrees, 32 MPhil degrees and 149 PhD degrees at the ceremony. In all 87 gold medals were awarded to meritorious students of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
The government will be able to fulfil its responsibility of disposing garbage, restoring natural resources, mitigating encroachments and providing better services, only if the people of Delhi stand up to the task of managing and taking care of Delhi, in the same way as they manage and take care of their homes, he said.
“I entrust you with the responsibility today to inculcate Delhi in your hearts as a city that you belong to and that you own. Let us begin with this campaign,” he said.