Amid reports from around the country about bridges collapsing and roads caving in, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a high-level meeting where he emphasised on being uncompromising in ensuring the quality and speedy execution in implementing major infrastructure projects.
Of late, the government has been facing the wrath of people, most devastating of them being a meme fest, against governance failures. Most visually striking were the wave of memes on pothole-ridden highways, the caving in of roads and the collapse of bridges. It could be a sheer coincidence that Modi spoke about quality while reviewing six key infrastructure projects across sectors, spread across nine States, that would cost the exchequer Rs 30,000 crore.
Also, as the BJP braces itself to face the Uttar Pradesh electorate next year, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath moved post haste by announcing third party quality audits of major roads, bridges, and expressways to check their quality, durability, and technical compliance. Evidently, the internal monitoring systems have fallen short of expectations. At this critical juncture, the ruling party cannot afford the public criticism that has begun surfacing in social media about defects in newly built, high-profile infrastructure that was launched with much fanfare.
A decade ago, when things were hunky-dory, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari boasted about the use of space technology for geo-mapping to monitor the progress of trees planted and its survival rates in greenfield national highways projects. Now, all the big talk has come back to bite the government.
Two developments that sparked the mass outrage were the protest by the Cockroach Janta Party that broke the 12-year-long spell of fear, and the thrusting of ethanol-blended fuel on unwilling people who are already unhappy with the extortionate toll charges. These triggered a wave of resentment against the minister. Once touted as an efficient minister with strong skills in project implementation and delivery credentials, Gadkari suddenly found himself becoming a butt of memes. The stark ground reality and the undeniable high-impact video evidence blew the propaganda and myth-making smithereens. The genie could not be put back in the bottle.
Secondly, the BJP ploy of using high-visibility transportation projects such as highways and fast trains worked for a long time. Used by millions of people, they played a role in indirectly validating government's claims of all-round governance and in reinforcing the core message of its multi-platform, high-voltage publicity about putting the country on the track of development and becoming a superpower. In the last couple of months, all the narrative control and image-building has come unstuck.
The government should realise that the poor quality of roads and crumbling bridges are symptomatic of a larger governance failure. As years went by, when the political dispensation and bureaucracy realised that they cannot be held accountable, impunity and complacency had set in, adversely affecting the planning, design, construction, and monitoring of projects. Contrary to the ruling party’s claims, these projects were dogged by corruption and the whispers of rampant bribery began to grow louder.
It is not going to be easy to stem the tide of public outrage and criticism. Besides quick fixes like headline management and social media take down notices, the government should restore accountability and checks and balances system to ensure effective execution of projects.