New Delhi, August 19
For Zaib-un-Nisa (54) from Sialkot, Pakistan, there could not have been a better Eid gift than what she got from Indian doctors here yesterday--liver transplant and in this the contribution of a few Samaritans, students residing at Rajender Place close to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital where the surgery was performed, surely cannot be ignored.

For a couple of years, Zaib had been suffering from hepatitis C, the second commonest cause of liver cirrhosis, and her condition had deteriorated significantly when her family decided to bring her to India.

Zaib reported to the hospital with advanced liver cirrhosis (80 per cent damage). And it took nearly 16 hours for the operating team, under liver transplant surgeon Naimish Mehta, to conduct the complicated surgery along with implanting the portion of a liver, donated by her 26-year-old son Umar Subhani on August 14.

Importantly, for the operation the doctors had put forth a requirement of 14 units of blood and platelets for which the family reached out to locals and pasted notices outside students' hostels at Rajender Nagar and the response was overwhelming.

"When many people from India learnt that we are from Pakistan, they readily came out to help us. Starting from our landlord in Delhi where we are staying, to the taxi driver or vegetable seller. We needed blood and then six students came forward to donate blood. We are obliged to all of them," said Umar, who works with the chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan. 

New Delhi, August 19
July has come and gone but the grand plan to start installation of tamper-proof high security registration plates (HSRPs) on 70 lakh existing registered vehicles in the national Capital is yet to pick up steam.

Working at a snail's pace, the Delhi Government's transport department has reached an average of 600 vehicles till date and considering the sheer volume even the 11 centres identified for the task, it has many miles to go. The Supreme Court had directed the states to install HSRPs on new vehicles from May 1 and on older vehicles from June 15.

Adding to the magnitude of the task is that every day Delhi registers 1,200 new vehicles and the elementary math shows that it is just double of the installed capacity to install these HSRPs.

The work for fitting the HSRPs on new vehicles started on April 30 this year and Delhi and Chandigarh are the pioneer cities. However, the plan to install them on the existing registered vehicles is still to start and officials explain the slow pace to the fact that initially this work was being done only at the Burari Regional Transport Authority in North Delhi.

Having realised that installation of HSRP cannot be handled by just one centre, the department opened 11 centres, but it is anybody's guess when the backlog can be cleared.

On the condition of anonymity, officials of the department confided that work has not really started and plans were afoot to make public announcement once the work begins. A part of the delay was also because just one company was awarded the contract, but that too was challenged till the courts cleared it.

S.M. Ali, incharge of the HSRP project, said, "It is mandatory for all the new vehicles to have these plates installed. The existing centres are located close to regional transport offices and charges fixed are Rs 216 for a four-wheel vehicle, Rs 86 for a three-wheeler and Rs 69 for a two-wheeler."