Demanding Accountability Isn't Just Our Right; It's Our Duty

One can dream of an India where traveling from Mumbai to Bengaluru doesn't leave you feeling as though you've endured a boxing match with a professional pugilist.

- Anand Neelakantan

But such fantasies remain just that, don't they? For in actual India, traversing the country's highways resembles more of a survival challenge—one that strains your composure, your vehicle's shock absorbers, and occasionally your confidence in contemporary construction. The bridges may collapse under your tires, the six-lane road may suddenly become single-lane with traffic coming from opposite sides, or you may vanish along with your two-wheeler into a crater-sized pothole that dots the service roads; anything is possible.

In the preceding quarter, we've observed a series of devastating structural disasters that would mortify any construction professional. A decades-old span in Vadodara within Gujarat gave way on July 9, sending multiple vehicles plummeting into the Mahisagar waters, claiming 20 lives. The incident echoed the haunting memory of October 30, 2022, when a suspended walkway over Morbi's Machhu river disintegrated, resulting in 135 fatalities in that identical state. A span crumbled in Saharsa, Bihar, during the passage of an overburdened farm vehicle. The event marked the seventh structural failure in Bihar since May 2024. A bridge still under development spanning the Ganga in Patna succumbed to gravity in September. Bridges are falling down all over the country, in Bihar, in Gujarat, in Maharashtra, in West Bengal, in Kerala.

These instances aren't anomalies; they are symptomatic of a deeper malaise—the pathetic condition of our national highways. All these shoddy monuments are in fact a testament to corruption and zero accountability.