Dated: September 19, 2014

To

Shri Najeeb Jung,

Hon’ble Lt. Governor,

NCT of Delhi & Chairman, DDA

New Delhi

Subject: An appeal to Shri Najeeb Jung, Hon’ble Lt. Governor, NCT of Delhi & Chairman, DDA, New Delhi, to kindly intervene and hold in abeyance the allotment process for flats notified via DDA Housing Scheme, 2014

Dear Hon’ble Sir,

We, the undersigned, request you to kindly intervene and hold in abeyance the allotment process notified via DDA Housing Scheme, 2014. Via this scheme about 25,000 new DDA apartments are to be allotted to applicants by lottery. We understand computers are to be used to draw the winning numbers sometime in the month of October, 2014. However, anyone with a little bit of familiarity with computer programming, including us, has to be very apprehensive regarding the use of computers for such purposes. In addition, there are some obvious mistakes in the application, as indicated below.

(1) First of all, one and the same person may belong to more than one special reserved category, and s/he should be able to check all of the reserved categories s/he belongs to. For example, a person may happen to belong to the categories of a Person of Disability (PD), War Widow, Ex-service woman, and Scheduled Caste. Such a person should be able to mention the category codes PD, WW, EX and SC in her application. However, in the application form, we find only two boxes for Category code in the 9th item in the application. We do not understand if the two boxes are meant to hold the two letters of the codes or they are there to hold two different codes. There should actually be four boxes so that if a person belongs to more than one category, s/he should be able to indicate the same using as many boxes as needed. This mistake on the part of the DDA is in urgent need of correction. DDA should consider re-issuing corrected form and publicize the corrections as soon as possible. Best thing would be cancel the previous notification and re-issue new notification and application form and application dates should be changed to October or November of 2014.

(2) Secondly, from the fact that the general category applicants are supposed to fill in the code GE, while the rest are to choose other code(s), it seems that the DDA is planning to fill about 72.5% of the flats with only the general category applicants, depriving the reserved category persons of a shot at the GE quota flats. If this is their intention, it is against the law.

In accord with the current reservation law, all reserved category applicants have right to be considered to be a part of the general category as well while the general category seats (flats in the instant case) are being filled. If a reserved category applicant does get a seat/flat while the general category quota is being filled, the former would not be considered to have taken up one of the seats in from that reserved category quota. Only after all of the general category seat/flats are filled out, the quotas for the reserved categories would be filled by looking the pool of applicants from the respective categories who have not already been allotted a flat as yet (during filling the general category seats/flats).

(3) Non-transparency anywhere shrieks corruption. All that can be done to stamp out corruption must be done. In view this, bringing about transparency is essential in the lottery process. It has to start with the generation of the random numbers for the lottery. Computer software can be programmed to do anything. It can be programmed to genuinely randomly generate desired number of lottery-numbers. On the other hand, it can just as easily be programmed (rigged) in such a manner that it generates a certain number of lottery-numbers genuinely randomly, while the rest of numbers generated could be surreptitiously fed into the program by its operator just a few days prior to the lottery day. How is anyone going to believe that the computer software is not rigged? It is very difficult to test veracity of such programs. Even if a program has somehow been tested, there is no guarantee that overnight some miscreants would not change the whole system if they can make millions of Rupees via rigged program.

The only way public trust can be increased in the lottery system is if it is done in a totally transparent manner. Increase of transparency is also likely to increase the number of applicants and government’s revenue from the same. It will also go a long way in increasing the trust of people in the government, which, we all know, how sorely all government agencies are lacking in India.

We understand that in the USA and most of the advanced countries lottery numbers generated a very transparent manner. They do it under the gaze of millions of people via TV cameras every day of the week. The transparency generates trust among people in the lottery system, and for that reason the government is able to sell millions of lottery tickets every day. Here is URL/ link for a video clip of a drawing of lottery number in Texas, USA, showing how lottery numbers are pulled out of glass or Plexiglas jars in a very transparent manner:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMXVqZKpXJE.

Most other states in the USA have similar lottery drawing systems. From the video it should be clear that pulling the lottery numbers in a very transparent manner is doable. For a detailed description of a simple equipment discerned from the lottery drawing systems used in the USA please see the Appendix in the blog:

http://a-letter-to-the-chairman-of-dda-delhi.blogspot.com/2014/09/datedseptember-19-2014-to-shri-najeeb.html.

The Appendix in the blog should convince you about the feasibility of a very transparent mechanical random generator.

Hon’ble Sir, it is not right to ask people to have faith in the software manufacturer and the computer operators particularly when millions of Rupees can be made by rigging the system and allotting the flats to family, friends and the bribe payers.

We therefore request you to kindly order the concerned bureaucrats to delay the whole scheme by a couple of months (at least one month) so that new corrected application form may be issued and arrangements may be made for the lottery numbers to be drawn in a transparent manner indicated below. In view of the immediacy of lottery allotment to be done soon after the end of application process by 9th October, 2014, may we request your urgent attention to this matter?

We would very much appreciate learning about the suitable steps you would be taking to increase the said transparency in lottery system of DDA Housing Scheme, 2014.

Thanking you very much,

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Satinath Choudhary

C/o Mr. Amar Singh

Gali No. 3

Wazirabad Village

Delhi 110084

email: satichou@gmail.com

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