Infra, Start From the Shaky Ground Level

'Infra' is India's latest buzzword. The recent Union budget also put renewed emphasis on the heft and charms of infrastructure building. But when you have cases like the death of three persons from drowning inside a flooded basement of a Delhi coaching centre building, you realise that aspirations woefully don't match ground reality. That it took fatalities in India's capital city for gross negligence to be 'newsworthy' tells its own story. Urban infrastructure can't be built and maintained in isolation of civic rules and regulations. Cutting corners, getting NOCs passed without proper checks - these all run counter to the Great India Infra Story. Authorities should come down on violations like a ton of bricks.

The Old Rajinder Nagar case isn't an outlier. About 13 months ago, 61 students were injured in a fire at another coaching centre in north Delhi. The details were strikingly similar: owners were arrested, the fire department claimed the centre was operating illegally without a permit. Basements are illegally used for gyms, coaching centres, libraries and shops, in violation of Master Plan of Delhi 2021, and Unified Building By-laws 2016. And we're not even talking about what the state is in 'booming' tier-2 cities and towns. Such large-scale violations can only occur with the complicity of authorities.

The fact that India needs - and is currently in the throes of - an infrastructure-building spree must not take its eye off matters like safety and urban planning, and avoidance of creating ugly concrete jungles that serve only the purpose of construction for construction's sake. The wheel doesn't have to be reinvented to make Indian infra more than just a mantra. Implementation of rules and regulations must be writ in cement.