A rainy Sunday afternoon turned tragic in Maharashtra’s Pune after a footbridge over the Indrayani River gave way throwing at least 32 people into the fast-flowing river below killing four people while several others are feared missing. The tragedy comes the same day a chopper crash killed seven people including five pilgrims in Uttarakhand who were heading for the Kedarnath pilgrimage.
The back-to-back tragedies, if anything, only prove one thing -- that no lessons have been learnt from the recurring tragedies and whatever platitudes were offered after tragedies like the Morbi bridge tragedy in Gujarat were just that -- platitudes without even a hint of sincerity behind them.
After this tragedy too, the government will announce compensation to the victims, promise to conduct an inspection of all weak government structures, and built infrastructure, an inquiry will be initiated into the incident, the inquiry report will be filed and subsequently shelved and the cycle will continue. It is a cycle that has been going on for decades now, with no one keen to take responsibility for it. We are not unlike America where every now and then there is a mass shooting event, politicians offer their thoughts and prayers but are seldom followed up with concrete action.
The root of the problem lies in the lack of accountability as well as in how the system is deliberately designed. Inspection and maintenance of such structures is ideally the role of the local government -- be it the panchayat, the municipality or the municipal corporation -- who with their wide network of local representatives are best placed to raise an alarm when something needs attention. The trouble is these grassroots governance bodies neither have the powers nor the funding to do anything about it, with the real powers resting with the state government, who by design have kept all the powers and money for themselves only opening the purse strings when it comes to handing out contracts for new infrastructure. After all, that’s where the real money lies.
The present system is what you get when you have governments that want all of the powers and none of the responsibilities. When you have MLAs who want control of panchayats and municipal bodies but don’t want a proper garbage collection system or well-maintained public places.
Boasting having a double or triple-engine government means nothing if everything is quite literally falling apart and no one is willing to admit that they failed in the sole job that was entrusted to them. Unfortunately, rather than take up the job in earnest, the duty is delegated to collectors and revenue officials under the Disaster Management Act, whose decisions are often overruled by politicians to favour property owners and other moneyed interests.
One way out of this mess is to hold elected representatives personally accountable for endangering the lives of the public through their acts of commission and omission. It’s not enough that the victims are given compensation by the government after the tragedy has occurred, those who have the powers should also have the responsibility and when things go south, they have to own up for their failures not just with words and offering compensation through tax payers’ money. It’s time we question our representatives.
