High Cost of Building Cheap

India’s obsession with the lowest-cost construction—whether private homes or public infrastructure— delivers fragile results. Stronger policies, better engineering, and quality focus are urgent

- SACHIN SHRIDHAR

ell, another monsoon comes to an end—or we hope it is coming to an end.

This year has been especially troublesome for the mountain states of Himachal, Uttarakhand, J&K, and the riverine states like Punjab below. With record rainfalls, swelling rivers, and landslides, it has brought far more misery, death, and destruction than in many decades in the past. Every day, social media carries horrific images of dead animals, ruined crops, submerged cars, giant landslides, and entire homes getting washed away. Each State Government is putting its claim (some say exaggerated) to get the maximum disaster relief funds from the Centre. Pundits of What-sApp University are dealing in platitudes about global warming, the revenge of nature, and so on. Come September, come Diwali time, it will all be forgotten—at least till the time we are hit again. We have seen this movie many times before.