NEW DELHI- The recent deadly roof collapse at New Delhi’s main airport was the latest in construction safety incidents and triggered concerns over India’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure drive. A portion of a canopy and pillars at a departure terminal in the Indira Gandhi International Airport, one of the country’s busiest collapsed recently, following heavy rain, killing at least one person and injuring many others. At the airport Terminal 1, The collapse also caused a suspension of operations, which is used for local flights, which affected the travel plans of many individuals. Within recent years in India, It joins a growing list of infrastructure incidents that have raised many questions about the rapid pace of mega-development projects in the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Narayan Moorthy, a Delhi-based architect, blamed it on many factors, including slipshod work culture, that is frequent use of poor-quality materials, reckless hurry towards the end of projects so that some politician can inaugurate it on a particular date, and lack of maintenance after construction. This whole cocktail came together to result in a complete disaster, like the collapsed airport roof in Delhi that harmed many individuals and killed one hapless soul. Similar is the case of the roof of the brand-new Jabalpur airport that thankfully had no human casualties but exposes our systemic rot, he said.
A day before the Delhi accident, a part of the canopy of Jabalpur airport in Rajasthan collapsed under heavy rains, while a canopy fell at the passenger pickup area at Rajkot airport in Gujarat. In the eastern state of Bihar, recently four bridges also collapsed and an $80 million underpass in Delhi, which was inaugurated just ahead of India’s hosting of the G20 summit last year, has been waterlogged for many days, disrupting traffic in Delhi’s main thoroughfare. According to Bloomberg Economics, under Modi’s building spree, about 44.4 trillion rupees ($532 billion) in new infrastructure will become operational over the next two years. Modi has presided over many ribbon-cutting ceremonies of these projects, as modernizing infrastructure was the main goal of his campaign during this year’s national election when he won a third term as India’s premier. Over the past years, his government said it has upgraded railways, expanded highways by thousands of kilometers, and built 80 new airports.
The projects have been criticized by India’s opposition leaders, with Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the Indian National Congress party, among the latest to accuse Modi’s government of corruption following the incident. Corruption and criminal negligence are responsible for the collapse of shoddy infrastructure falling like a deck of cards, in the past 10 years of Modi Government.Prof. A.K. Gosain, a civil engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi said one of the major reasons for infrastructural failures can be traced back to the falling quality of construction, adding that there is no accountability at the top, leaving people at the lower levels as scapegoats whenever problems arise.
Anuj Srivastava, an architect from the School of Planning and Architecture in the Indian capital and a veteran of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army, also said that the lack of maintenance and accountability in India’s infrastructure projects and the indifference toward the environment in a fast-changing climate. The reason for the collapse and accidents of infrastructure is the lack of concern for the environment and the haste in planning and executing the project, proving the adage haste makes waste, says Srivastava. Infrastructure disaster damages India’s reputation. In the unseemly haste to build world-class infrastructure in a hurry and its subsequent collapse, permanent damage is being caused to India’s reputation.
