Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
I just happened to recall a long conversation I had with retired senior journalist, Dilip Raote, when he was still in the pink of health, at our Bombay press club. It was about the poor state of infrastructure in our country.
Dilip narrated about how the US government pressed their armed forces to build infrastructure like roads and highways, soon after peace dwelt in the world following the end of World War II. He wanted to drive home the point that armed forces must be put to good use during peace times, to ensure that their skills get honed continuously.
As our chat went on, I recalled my visit to College of Military Engineering, Kirki, Pune along with a press team to cover their golden jubilee celebrations. I told Dilip that the sprawling complex with the facilities I got to see were very impressive. Dilip then thrust into the crux of the matter. Even though we are equipped with a huge defense force that is deft in handling any requirement, be it technological or civil or say communications, our government rarely choose to put it to good use, barring in situations where they are faced with a tight corner. He recalled the instance when the defense team of engineers were called in to demolish and set right the foot over bridge at Masjid station in South Mumbai within 24 hours. He said, instead of being used as stand by or a last ditch option, our government should proactively employ their services at peace time intervals to benefit our country.
Much later, as a sequel to our conversation, I recalled the instance when Army team was pressed into service to rebuild a collapsed bridge, just on time for the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. A more recent instance comes to mind when the defense team was required to build a foot over bridge connecting the exit points of Parel and Elphinstone local stations in Mumbai. This task too catered to tight deadlines.
Why then does this trend prevalent at both Centre and State levels, was the query posed. The answers come easy. Be it any government or Party in power, their first preference is to obtain a hefty kickback. It was Dilip, being a veteran, who threw light on how things work even at the civic level. He narrated how the civic body had installed a software to evaluate the adherence to criteria set for carrying out constructions. The software proved to be a stickler to rules and most proposals put forth by builders got shot down. Eventually, the civic staff junked the software and resumed manual evaluation of proposals.
To sum up, we have some of the best brains and talent in our country that on many occasions draw a nought owing to systemic failures.
