The Chennai flooding, death and destruction that we witnessed recently is on a par with the Mumbai flooding of a few years back, and may God rest the departed souls of those who didn’t survive.
While we focus on this tragedy, we tend to let our vision become blurred about the REAL culprits behind this debacle! Yes, the freaky weather definitely account for a large proportion of the blame, but the politician-bureaucrat-contractor nexus over ‘supposed’ desilting of Chennai’s drains must be thoroughly investigated, and ALL culprits punished severely because this amounts to mass murder! Sadly, we do NOT have any will to challenge this type of atrocity, and it is quickly forgotten and the file collects dust after a few weeks!
It’s a known fact that the above-mentioned 3 groups of people in whichever State don’t give a hoot about the general population, all that drives them into seeking office – and what sustains them while in office – is money translated into power, into a comfortable lifestyle and retirement! They either do shoddy work, or perhaps only on paper (meaning no work is actually done at all but charges are raised and collected, and that too at hefty inflated rates), well above specified pricing norms; they loot the country blindly, and this is called rampant corruption!
Then, when calamity strikes (as this natural one did), and the heartstrings of the people are wrenched, when the Centre rushes in with bagfuls of crores of Rupees, it’s party time all over again, baby! And the beat goes on just as before with many more hundreds of crores to be siphoned off! I’m sure that by now you understand why all and sundry politicians fight over the Home, PWD, and other ‘cash-cow rich’ portfolios in any cabinet, and why every Tom, Dick and Harry gets into politics in the first place!
People of Goa, take notice that the same calamity as in Chennai could easily strike here, and we need to be vigilant to ensure that work supposedly done in our State actually gets done!
