Who says the Modi government is tough on corruption?
By Manohar Manoj
In India, history has been changed, rather a new history has been written through many new construction works. Of course, both of these things should have been done, which was also done by the Modi Government,, Of course, that is a very proud thing for the country. But the way, the sight of corruption, construction-related deficiencies, and many technical defects erupted in these history-making construction works, which were also revealed by many media reports, was a heartbreaking thing for the country.
The prevalence of corruption in our country, which is rampant in all the systems of the country, of which even the present Modi government keeps saying about and also has been showing resolve to eliminate them from time to time, seems a hollow exercise. Let’s look at, what is its true nature, whether it is a matter of constructing a new Parliament House in place of the Parliament House built in the country by the erstwhile British Government about a hundred years ago, whether it is a case of complaints about the sloppy finishing of the outer premises of the newly constructed Bharat Mandapam at the international trade exhibition site of Delhi, where heavy water logging in its newly constructed underground parking and underground tunnels built under it, whether it is the case of Shivaji Maharaj statue built in Maharashtra, which collapsed within six months of construction, whether the flaws in all the construction works including the Ram temple in the newly built city of Ayodhya, also in the Mahakal temple of Ujjain and the Vishwanath corridor of Varanasi followed by many cracks found in the construction work of the newly built historical Nalanda University, which actually shames us. Indeed, Prime Minister Modi publicly apologized for the fall of Shivaji Maharaj’s statue given the assembly elections in Maharashtra, but the larger question is whether rampantly prevailing corruption in India is affecting also those construction works that make history and write new history. Even the much larger question is, are our ruling political regimes not able to demonstrate their strong will to enforce the No Tolerance to Corruption in such construction works? We all know that the system of corruption in this country is based on nefarious alliances of politicians, bureaucrats, engineers and contractors bent on hollowing out the country as well as tarnishing the newly created history of the country? Not only the misappropriation of funds was visible in the above-mentioned construction works, but also the hasty and hasty disposal of the entire multi-step process of these construction works made the things worse. It may also be due to the haste to take only praise and pat oneself on the back of these construction works, or even because of the patronage received by politicians’ operatives in these construction works to do any kind of substandard work.
It is generally seen that the construction works in which sufficient time is given; the construction works are found better and standard one. However, many times the duration of the construction work is also extended so that the estimated amount of the construction work can be increased. On the other hand, it is also seen that due to insufficient duration, the construction are being done overnight resulting many flaws in the work and their quality are affected.
Even today, when we talk about the quality of construction that has made a name in the history of the country, then we either see all the temples built by the kings of the early medieval period, or else we see the palaces, forts, and tombs built in the medieval and Mughal periods, or Then Victoria Palace and VT Railway Station, Viceroy House built in Lutyen Zone of Delhi which is called Rashtrapati Bhavan today, North and South Block and Parliament House are also the examples in this regard built during the British period. Even today, the railway stations and railway bridges built during the British era look rock solid, while the irony is that today’s modern constructions cannot withstand even a single monsoon rain.
We have to say that we are living in a modern, democratic, technological, and scientific age, but we have not yet been able to create a new history-making building. Sometimes corruption comes in the way, sometimes defects in construction technology emerge, and sometimes the nefarious style of politicians comes in the way.
It is worth noting that every year in India, about twenty lakh crores of rupees in terms of planning expenditure and capital expenditure are wasted by the central and state governments in various development and construction works, i.e. It is true that every construction agency to which the government outsources construction work is also entitled to earn a reasonable return on its investment and operations. But if the engineers of the concerned department of the government and the bureaucrats and ministers working at the departmental and ministerial level divert the construction funds, then the quality of the construction work is affected. Due to this, every infrastructure in the country, whether it is a building, road, bridge or any airport, or port, their actual cost gets high and there becomes an imbalance in the cost of production and income, the money received from public taxes is misused. Importantly, there are constant complaints in all the above-mentioned cases of infrastructure. Many cases do not even make media headlines. Now the question is how long will this streak last? Will the issue of corruption in the country be raised only based on political gains and losses? Will the politics of corruption continue in the country or will it be attacked from all sides considering it as the biggest obstacle in the way of making the destiny of the country?
It must be said that the narrative that the Modi government has built on the problem of corruption has been based only on naming, shaming and blaming its political opposition rather than focusing on solving the flaws in the public system of the country. If govt. starts considering it as the fundamental problem of the country, then it would have attacked the roots of this problem in a politically neutral way. If the Modi government is looking to make the country a truly developed nation, it will first have to execute the daunting task of making India corruption-free.
Mr. Manoj is the author of the famous book, A CRUSADE AGAINST CORRUPTION ON THE NEUTRAL PATH