Too much infrastructure?

The Mumbai Trans Harbour Link as seen from Parel on the night of January 15. PIC/Rane Ashish. Location courtesy/Crescent Bay

I sometimes wonder if things were better off before India got those 100 Smart Cities that have now transformed us into a world-beating nation. I haven't visited any of these magical urban areas yet, but I'm pretty sure they must be somewhere within our borders because the Prime Minister promised us they would appear soon after he first came to power.

As anyone who has read this column before can attest, there is no human being on this planet I trust more than the most erudite Prime Minister, so I believe these Smart Cities have been built, and intend to visit one of them soon. I may even have passed through a few already and just not noticed.

The reason I think about the past and imagine those days were better are pesky reports of things breaking down around us. They have begun to appear with startling regularity these days, in newspapers and on television, and there is a doomsday vibe to them that doesn't sit right with how brightly India is supposed to be shining. Part of me is annoyed with the journalists who insist on telling us what's happening because, if the past decade has taught us anything, it is that bad news doesn't deserve attention. Why focus on airport canopies crumbling, or bridges falling apart, or cities being overwhelmed by a bit of rain, when we can look at what the Indian cricket team is doing instead? Where are our priorities?

I'm starting to feel as if there may be such a thing as too much, too soon, when it comes to development. Before we had fancy new airports, for instance, I had never heard of a collapsing canopy. Before we had flyovers in our cities, nothing much fell onto the heads of our fellow citizens. Look at Bihar alone as an example. By June this year, five or six bridges had collapsed within 10 days. Would any of this have occurred if the honest, hard-working government of Bihar hadn't wasted time, energy, or money on building those bridges? Who is to say the people of Bihar needed them in the first place?

It's easy to see why our ministers want more roads, bridges and flyovers. Cynics will say these projects allow a certain number of individuals to get rich quickly, but I'm sure our politicians do it for the betterment of society, which is why they get into politics to begin with. One must stop and ask if these projects should be undertaken though, given that we probably don't have the expertise to see them through. Why should we hold any government responsible for a collapsed bridge after we know that finding a decent road in India is still a bit of a fantasy? Is it fair to assume that a country without the capacity to build a pothole-free road in any major city can take on something as daunting as an airport?

Blaming the government for everything that goes wrong is easy, but we should also appreciate it for the one or two things it does right, on those rare occasions when this happens. Should the government be held responsible just because canopies collapsed at airports in Delhi and Rajkot? Should ministers be questioned just because the roof of a massive new temple in Ayodhya is leaking or because new roads there have been inundated by water? Does the government need to explain why there are cracks in Bombay's Trans Harbour Link Road, or why the Pragati Maidan Tunnel was submerged a while ago? Just because a few critics of the government are referring to these new projects as an electoral gimmick, does that mean we should be this cynical too?

It may make sense for us all to take a deep breath and hit the pause button for a while. Let's consider not building any new roads, bridges or airports until we can figure out why the ones already built are crumbling. Maybe it's something incredibly complicated, like the use of poor materials, which may take us a while to understand. We know it can't be something as ridiculous as dodgy contractors, corrupt officials, or the possibility of kickbacks. After all, we are governed by the most honest people in India's history.

Until we figure things out, let's go back to walking everywhere, and avoiding standing under anything. That way, even with the constant presence of adulterated food, poor healthcare and unsafe drinking water, there will still be fewer things that can kill us.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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