Time to take responsibility
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: July 01, 2024 -

IF not for the collapse of roof at Terminal 1 of Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) on Friday morning that left an Ola driver killed and four people injured, the incident at jabalpur's Dumna Airport in Madhya Pradesh where a car belonging to an Income Tax official suffered damage when a section of the tensile roof canopy of the newly constructed terminal caved in a day earlier might have been relegated to oblivion with everyone accepting the official explanation given of the canopy getting ripped under the weight of rain water.

Again, if not for the collapse of a similar canopy at Gujarat's Rajkot International Airport (RIA) in Hirasar village on Saturday, the incident at Delhi's IGIA might have been reduced to just another political row with the ruling party rejecting criticism of the opposition parties that the accident site was inaugurated in haste by the Prime Minister before the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year by pointing out that the affected structure was built way back in 2009.

But it has not been hard for anyone to miss the common thread that weaves through all these unfortunate incidents, which is lack of accountability.

Even if one is ready to accept the argument, howsoever ridiculous it may sound, that the collapsed roof at Terminal 1 of Delhi's IGIA was constructed by the previous government in 2009 and hence the present BJP-led government which came to power in 2014 is not responsible, what about the incidents at the airports in Jabalpur and Rajkot?

Since the government cannot put the blame on the previous government for these two incidents, is it going to hold the seasonable monsoon rainfall responsible for the disaster?

In fact, this seems to be exactly what is happening now with officials trying to convince the people that the tensile roof canopies of the newly constructed terminals of the airports in Jabalpur and Rajkot got ripped under the weight of rain water.

There has been no doubt in the mind of the people about the BJP-led government at the centre blaming the previous government for anything and everything or trying to find a scapegoat for its own failure in governing the country in its last 10 years in power.

So, just as "a leopard can't change its spots", it would be nothing but wishful thinking to expect it to own up for the collapse of roofs at airports in Jabalpur, Delhi and Rajkot.

But if one takes into account of viral videos of rain water leaking from the roof of Lucknow airport's terminal 3, which was inaugurated in March this year; water dripping down the 'gudh mandap' of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya within six months of its consecration, cracks developed on the approach road to Atal Setu, the country' longest bridge in Maharashtra's Mumbai after it was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 12 this year or the back-to-back incidents of newly inaugurated bridges collapsing in different parts of Bihar, then it becomes clear that the construction quality of all these infrastructural projects had been compromised.

This is a fact which the government could not negate and any attempt to shift the blame or find a scapegoat this time is going to be difficult as the evidences are mounting.

Whether the contractors or construction companies had compromised the work quality due to the haste of inaugurating these projects by Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the Lok Sabha elections to woo the voters also need to be investigated.

Since the Prime Minister had presided over ribbon-cutting ceremonies of many of these projects and modernising infrastructure was a key part of his pitch to the voters to win the election for the third consecutive term, he should be answerable to the 'crumbling' projects.

Let's not forget "where there is credit, there is also an equal share of responsibility".