- As a country and countrymen, we Indians are extremely intelligent, shrewd, and ingenious in finding ways and means to find opportunities to make things happen when the majority would have given up. We are most capable of finding loopholes in anything and everything, and making good use of those opportunities to serve our interests. Innumerable instances have been reported over the decades, leaving none whatsoever from our purview to find a small loophole to further exploit to make it big. In the local parlance, we aptly term it as jugaad. This jugaad business thrives splendidly despite the government authorities and other institutions leaving no stone unturned to plug it. Little wonder that our quality in every aspect of the economy largely suffers.
PC: News18
- We take great pride in calling ourselves a country poised to be counted amongst the developed nations in the world. We are proud of our rich legacy, heritage, tradition, and culture, never failing to highlight how we stand apart from others. While aspiring to become a developed nation is praiseworthy, failure to plug the anomalies in the quality aspects, vis-à-vis architectural, engineering, and overall manufacturing, must be plugged for good. And then there is the bane of corruption bogging down every step, with the unholy nexus between the political masters and bureaucrats eating at the very base of integrity. As reported recently, Mumbaikars are grappling with yet another ghastly-designed flyover. Engineering failures no longer explain these. Why?
PC: News9 Live
- Is India’s richest city also its most corrupt? Less than two years after the infamous Gokhale Bridge scandal, the metropolis has served up yet another road construction that defies all explanations except the shabbiest. A new flyover in Mira-Bhayander has four lanes, suddenly shrinking to two. No words can really express how shocking the visuals are. But MMRDA says, don’t be shocked. It assures that this jump-cut enables the smooth crossing of a busy junction. Mumbaikars have obviously disagreed. They cannot see how this design helps either traffic management or road safety. That the authorities are defending it as a planned engineering decision suggests the problem runs deeper than it appears ghastly as the appearance is.
PC: Knocksense
- Further, rewind to the Gokhale Bridge scandal of 2024, where a 2-metre gap was revealed at the sky-junction of two flyovers, as if vehicles were expected to leap from one to the other. And 2025 saw Palava Bridge being closed no sooner than it was opened, because the road surface started crumbling. Similar shockers are being reported from other parts of the country as well. The 2024 monsoon saw 12 bridges collapse in Bihar within 20 days. Last year, the state was back in the headlines for a 60-foot-long, 10-foot-wide structure linking the mainland along the Kari Kosi river to floodplains that remain underwater from May till winter. Last year also saw a Bhopal marvel, with a 90-degree turn. No words for that, either. Fixing quality control problems is imperative. But so long as jugaad and corruption exist, quality control cannot be fixed. When will it happen?
![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://kanigas.com/india-is-known-for-its-jugaad-culture-everywhere/&media=https://kanigas.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/india-s-road-quality-reforms-prioritize-technical-merit-over-cost-in-infrastructure-projects.jpg&description=India's infrastructure quality crisis, exemplified by shocking engineering failures like Mumbai's poorly designed flyovers and Bihar's collapsing bridges, exposes the deep-rooted problems of corruption and the "jugaad" culture that undermine construction standards. Recent incidents including the Gokhale Bridge scandal revealing a 2-metre gap and the Mira-Bhayander flyover abruptly shrinking from four lanes to two demonstrate how the nexus between political masters and bureaucrats compromises public safety and architectural integrity. Until corruption is eliminated and quality control mechanisms are strictly enforced, India's aspirations to become a developed nation will remain compromised by substandard infrastructure that defies basic engineering principles.){kind=link}