We see these days in the newspapers, contrasting news about the state and condition of our towns and cities. Either there are complaints about the heat or when it rains there are complaints about the waterlogging. Both are the consequences of haphazard and unbridled emphasis on development too fast, too soon.
The heat arises out of rampant construction of buildings both within the limits of the towns and cities and the destruction of green cover of nearby forests. This has led to heat islands being formed in our urbanised areas. But then we blame climate change since that is an esoteric entity and everyone responsible escapes the blame for wrong urban planning.
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There is no doubt that climate change is a factor but its impact would have been lesser if there had been a limit set to construction activity in our urban areas. However with the exodus from our villages to the cities unbridled construction is attempted to be justified.
Construction tends to be done in an irresponsible manner particularly for government sponsored projects of public utility against tenders or those that the government takes up directly. Here, government means both the State & the Centre. The quality of work done by the former tends to be worse than the latter which tends to be a shade better. This claim has been proved with the collapse of over 16 bridges in Bihar over a 15 day period over the last month. This may be an extreme example but it is necessary to highlight the seriousness and extent of the malady.
During construction, care is not taken for related and proximate infrastructure as also green cover like trees. This is being said since damage is seen in adjacent buildings and also for drainage. Trees seem to be the major victims of random construction activity since as we have all seen in the name of widening of roads or building of highways trees are cut.
When pavers are to be installed on pavements of the road, the cement and other material are brought close to the trees so as to touch the trunks. This leaves little chance for the trees to draw sustenance from the soil since water seepage through the soil to the roots are blocked.
When a few trees fall, there are lengthy and infructious debates as to how the roots of the trees go deep and sustenance is derived from down below. If the entire road surface and pavements are hot mixed and cemented then the chance of water seepage underground is minimal and with the water table sinking in almost all places across India the derivation of sustenance for trees from the soil is impossible.
That is why across India you have trees falling down in our urban areas like ninepins which damages adjacent property, dislocates traffic and sometimes takes human lives. When tree fall happens because of natural causes, we are helpless but for cases where we do the construction, we can look after our trees by leaving a circle of 1 meter radius around the trees with which the trees can survive and not get murdered before their time.
With trees there is a related issue of trimming of branches which overhang on roads or other areas where their chances of toppling is likely to impact property, parked vehicles and also people’s lives.
Here again administration officials go into long winded debates of the methodology on how this should be done and by the time they have finished more often than not the tree may have fallen. The matter is actually simple. A tree normally stands up straight so it is best that you trim the branches that are likely to cause unbalance. If this is done then there are no mishaps and everyone can breathe a little easy.
The problem is both at the planning and implementation stage. During planning, the engineers are bought out and help vested interests for money. In the implementation stage as many of us would have noticed, there are rarely any senior people at the site or during construction of any project and it is left to the lowest worker to decide what & how it should be done. Thus things are a mess since no supervision is done or periodic inspections made to correct any errors at the time of construction.
Therefore the collapse of over 16 bridges in Bihar over a 15 day period. Maybe it could be a strategic tactic to get the sanction of Special Status for Bihar from the Centre! Here we need to add the airport canopy collapse at Delhi, which left 1 dead, and 2 other airports and the water tank tower collapsing in Mathura , where 1 woman died. All this was in the last month or so. How can canopies at 3 airports at 3 different locations collapse in a matter of days? Was the builder or contractor the same making the same errors?
But life goes on amidst gross irregularities, plumb inefficiency, callous attitudes. That is the story of India through the capsule of Goa. Across the country, this has been happening since the focus is not for doing good work but to finish work post-haste like roads and highways where the Minister will say that the 100Km per day target is being met and you will have cave-in’s, sinkholes, road collapses, landslides and floods caused during the rains.
Bridges and flyovers will be built, to fall down and be built again. The rush for development is creating a tottering India unsteady at its foundations and shaky as it rises higher. This is India, my friend. Nobody cares.
