- The entire country was overawed, mesmerized, and felt extremely elated no sooner than the new Parliamentary building was inaugurated last year by the Prime Minister. For the uninitiated, the construction of the new Parliamentary building commenced during the pandemic times and picked up pace when the deadly second wave was devastating the country. The Union Government was determined to ensure the new Parliamentary building was occupied at the earliest and the entity tasked with completing the same did conclude as per the deadline set. The elected representatives did move into the new building with much fanfare. Yes, the build-up to the new building inauguration was full of razzmatazz and anticipation. We all went with the flow.
PC: India Today
- Now, Indian citizens becoming cynical on matters related to government infrastructure developments need no further elaboration. Time and again Indian citizens have witnessed substandard and poor workmanship vis-à-vis government-sponsored construction of buildings, roads, bridges, dams, and other infrastructural projects. The poor quality of execution has repeatedly bogged these constructions with the bane of corruption visible at every step. The political masters-bureaucracy-contractors lobby has singed the country with such deeply embedded corrupt practices that it no longer makes us feel embarrassed, cringe, or frustrated when substandard quality of workmanship emerges unfailingly.
- As reported, not even the newly constructed Parliament building in New Delhi’s corridor of power is immune from the poor quality of workmanship. The nation would have felt nonchalant when the visuals of buckets being placed strategically in the new Parliament building to hold the leaking rain waters were splashed. Too many instances have been reported with such consistency over the years that it makes no dent in our daily lives to see the corridor of power inundated with rain waters either. When international standards airports, bridges, roads, dams, and buildings collapse or crack up or vanish or develop cracks/potholes/craters, we do not lose sleep over mere water seeping from the hallowed portals of the Parliament building, even if it is a brand-new structure.
PC: The Week
- People must have felt aghast for a change when bridges kept collapsing one after the other in Bihar in the last couple of months. We are so used to being taken for a royal ride by the apathy of the government officials, that it no longer makes us feel disappointed or disenchanted. We have developed quite an immunity to such things, you see. Parliament’s blue buckets cost less than a drop in the bucket for the Rs. 1200 crore + building. When the roof leaked, Parliament looked awfully like a house of the people. But with that much money spent building it, we must ask whether sound construction practice was observed. Going by the look of things, the usual Indian apathy was at the forefront rather than the sound construction practice. Extremely sad, indeed.
