Breach in IFCD's retaining wall and public faith in govt
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 26 2011 -

THE MULTI crore concrete walling of the two banks of the Nambul river was undertaken to prevent soil erosion in the banks and also to prevent, as far as possible, the overflow of flood waters inundating low lying inhabited areas on either side of the river.

The Chief Minister has been constantly urging the authority concerned to meet the set deadline of completion of the project, i.e. June 2011. He had made it a matter of pride that the work be complete in time. Obviously he has been let down by all concerned.

On May 24, 2011 a 25 feet portion of the retaining wall at Takyel Khongban Mayai Leikai breached as a result of unwashed sand and meagre cement content. The work was declared completed around 24 days ago.

The wall however has revealed its true identity, it is just a sand castle. The concerned Section Officer, one Rishikesh has been perfunctorily suspended, and in a knee jerk response, without ever explaining how extra funds are to be obtained, the IFCD Chief Engineer Th Indrakumar has declared publicly that if lack of quality so demands, reconstruction will be taken up wherever needed.

The villain of the piece, Thokchom Jatishwar of Bashikhong, the responsible contractor of the work, has made no comments.

Another showpiece matter of shame in this land which is a comedy of errors. A team of journalists went to inspect the breach site, and it did not require any knowledge of forensic science to discover wet mud in the mortar.

And anyway head mason Thokchom Latababu, directly responsible for building the breached section, had already let the cat out of the bag when he disclosed that, on instruction, he had used a 1:7 proportion for the mortar, i.e. on tablespoon of cement for every seven tablespoons of sand.

Whether he spoke sheepishly, or was giggling as he spoke cannot be ascertained as of now.

If lack of quality was indeed the major cause of the breach the looming sense of disaster is whether the embankments, walling, retaining walls, call it as you will, will collapse in bits and parts and serve the undesired purpose of further clogging a river which is already clogged by silt and refuse.

That will be a sight for sore eyes. On the other hand if design fault has contributed, at least in part, to the breaching of the wall, so much so for the pomposity in vaunting engineering knowledge.

We need to take a leaf out of Mao dze Dong's Cultural Revolution's actions and parade defaulters and make them explain in public the details of their shortcomings and goof ups.

Since the salaries of the engineers are drawn out of public taxes, they owe that much to the public to own up their incompetence.

Anyway, the government can ill afford to let its flagship programmes turn into rubble. We can empathise with the government that the present system of entrusting developmental work to contractors is part of the bane.

Brushing aside the contractors' lobby will only invite more headaches. It will be good to cast them aside, but you cannot. A classic Catch-22 situation.

But decide and act it must, and swift punishments will be a promising start. The longer the delay in dispensing justice the bigger will be the breach of trust as far as the public is concerned.