What we deserve

I look at my day gone past.  The early morning walk to the bus stop with the kids is a lovely experience.  It used to bother me but now I realized I am not whining much while walking. We carefully pick our way for this 40-meter trudge, avoiding the dirt, and expertly walking over uneven sand, dirt, stones and part paved roads.   This is when alarm bells begin to ring, it’s the state highway,  we are in the city’s central district area, yet why isn’t the road better, the pavements walk-able, the garbage not cleared. Imagine the rest of the state.

We have learned to accept that this is the norm, we have been conditioned to think bad roads and dirt and garbage on the street sides and undisciplined driving and behavior is part of our culture almost. 

NO, NO its not, as citizens we are being dumb and stupid. Is this what we deserve?  Is this what we pay for? Are we getting value? Are the Government officers, Public works departments doing their job? Good standard, well maintained roads and Infrastructure, clean neighborhoods, adequate safety are fundamental requirements. Don’t we see we are living in 4^th world conditions and its getting worse.

One instance that I can share, the road in front of my office was undergoing repair, the job was completed in the customary delayed fashion, and the traffic that was snarled was eventually resolved. In the end we got ourselves a single carriage way road, pretty decent asphalt in the centre areas and as usual the ends of the road on both sides had dangerous drops. As a practice, or following some 4^th world PWD standard the contractors never leveled, smoothed or rounded the roads ends.  Its designed to force the driver to stay on the track and if the wheels drift out, it would create a potentially dangerous scenario and cars could lose control, get damaged, and its doubly dangerous for two-wheelers.   Look on the bright side, at least the road is back, and we keep moving, and the pot holes are gone.  In three days, the water department come in, same road, starts digging it up and start some work, this rips the road apart and we are back to square one and since they only know how to rip, they don’t mend, and some water related job is completed. And a few days later the telecom guys come and dig adjacent to the water guys and the roads is broken into again and since neither the water or telecom guys do roads they leave it in a shredded state as a gift to the road travelers. Now, I guess its the turn of the electricity department. 

Incredible, so much effort by all these government agencies, they all executed some necessary work or the other, but clearly, they couldn’t be more uncoordinated. This is almost like a colonial legacy, a house divided against itself, and it cannot stand. But in a Jugaadi India, we keep it going. 

The solution is simple, the resources are there, the physical strength and brain power exists to get us a better land to live in, and it just needs us all – the public, the officials, the politicians to pull their heads out of the nonsense they indulge in and the personal quest for more power, more money, and politicking and instead focus on keeping the electoral promises, and allowing the office bearers to perform their jobs with honesty, integrity and innovation.  This also needs the public to realize what’s possible, what’s a minimum standard they expect, and reject poor quality service.

In the end, we deserve what we get, because we voted for it, we accepted it and we didn’t bother to get value for what we paid for.