Price of horrendous neglect and graft

The Morbi incident in which 140 people lost their lives after a British-era bridge collapsed on Sunday will become a perfect tool for the opposition parties to take on the BJP. The political parties keep searching for an opportunity to cash in on human tragedy. In 2016, when one such bridge came crashing down in Kolkata, Modi had said, "Such a huge bridge came crashing down, Didi, this is not an act of God, this is an act of fraud. This is the result of the act of fraud. It's definitely an act of God to the extent that it came down during elections and people got to know what kind of government you have been running. It is a message from God to the people that today the bridge has come down and tomorrow Bengal will government will fall, " the PM had said.

The Congress and other parties like AAP have already started using this as their weapon to attack the BJP government in the state as it is scheduled to go to polls soon. The BJP would try to counter this criticism saying that tragedies should not be politicised. In this kind of allegations and counter allegations, the suffering of the victims of the Morbi bridge collapsed would get drowned as the people standing on the bridge got drowned.

The bridge is 150-year old and was in a state of disrepair just as the Gujarat government. The bridge was closed for many years and was only recently 'renovated'. The killer bridge clearly points out that unless politicians stop indulging in corruption, it will not stop at the level of administration. Certainly, the district administration, particularly the civic administration, has to be blamed for this major tragedy. It turned Nelson's eye to the opening without inspection or permission. It gave the contract to a watch manufacturing company which does not have experience in construction or maintenance of such bridges. Though the company was to complete the works in about a years' time, it had thrown open the bridge to public on Gujarati new year day. And still the administration did not bother to wake up and question the company as to how it was allowing public without obtaining an NOC. This shows how callous the civic and local administration was and may be the callousness arises out of corruption.

The worst part is that the company which got the contract for renovation and repair of the bridge, Ajanta Watches Company, locked its office and no one was available for comment. That shows the inhuman attitude of the contractors. Since it happens to be election time, no political party would keep quiet over it. However, their emphasis will be on the failure of the government rather than on the measures in place in the State to ensure public safety. This does not happen because the cheapest commodity in this country is life. Every government just washes off its hands by announcing ex-gratia to the bereaved families and that's it. We have governments that invite foreign investments laying emphasis on 'Make in India'. Yet, there is no move to sensitise local administrations to their duty. Every tragedy here is blamed on extraneous reasons and issues only to make political gains. Even in the Morbi issue, corruption would be found at the bottom of it.

The Prime Minister stated, "I am in Ekta Nagar, but my mind is with the victims of Morbi. Rarely, in my life, would I have experienced such pain. On one hand, there is a pain-riddled heart and on the other hand, there is the path to duty," he said while addressing the people at the Statue of Unity in Gujarat's Kevadia where he paid floral tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his birth anniversary. But that does not suffice. Though the government had shown alacrity in rescue operations for which it needs to be appreciated, the 'Kartavya path' which Modi speaks often did not seem to have percolated down the line. Or else such tragedy would not have taken place. The problem with our politicians is that their only goal is to remain in power, whatever be their agenda.