Crocodiles on roads, tourists in bulldozers expose ‘Gujarat model’

The sight of a group of foreigners, not clear if they were travelling on business or as tourists, being rescued on bulldozers went viral in Gujarat this week as the video was widely shared. The good-natured foreigners waved back at amused onlookers.

Others were not as lucky as they remained stranded at home or in hotels for days without drinking water and electricity. Heavy rain in August, the Ahmedabad Mirror claimed, left the city with a staggering 19,000 potholes. At least 28 people are reported to have died, over 18,000 displaced, and parts of the road from Vadodara to the Statue of Unity were washed away, with other parts reporting severe damages.  

The waterlogging and hardship prompted residents of Surat, Vadodara, Jamnagar, Kutch and parts of Dwarka to bitterly criticise the ‘Gujarat model’. Unchecked construction and infrastructure building, they felt, had caused a manmade disaster. Emphasis on drainage, environmental concerns and principles of city planning were sacrificed in favour of infrastructure and commercial development.

Recommendations by experts for managing the water in the Vishwamitri river in Vadodara, submitted 20 years ago, were shelved and the river is increasingly becoming unmanageable during monsoons.

So much so that this time, it became a common sight to see crocodiles on the roads — with one Vadodara resident even losing his life in a crocodile attack — and occasionally on the roof. Cars were submerged under water, water entered homes and hotels and even relatively new constructions developed cracks or collapsed.

Videos of cracks in a newly constructed bridge in Surat inaugurated by the chief minister went viral on social media in July, with netizens describing it as the ‘real Gujarat model’. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in a statement said, “This is the result of institutionalised corruption in awarding infrastructure contracts in Gujarat,” adding that the Surat bridge, built at a cost of Rs 118 crore, had started developing cracks within months.

During cyclone Biparjoy, also in July, a newly constructed bridge on the Mindola river in Tapi district collapsed even before it was opened to the public. In April, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) lodged an FIR against officials of two firms involved in the construction of the Hatkeshwar bridge, which became unsafe for use just four years after it was constructed. The bridge is now being demolished by the civic body. In another such incident a few years ago, an under-construction bridge collapsed during a stress test, again in Ahmedabad.

“This is the real Gujarat model of the BJP, where there is 40 per cent commission in awarding contracts for public infrastructure projects,” Gujarat Congress spokesman Manish Doshi said.

A retired technocrat told the Hindu that Gujarat once had a world-class quality control system for public infrastructure works, but that in recent years, the quality had deteriorated. “Corruption could be one factor but the main factor is the lack of quality control checks carried out by officials,” he said.

Gujarat plans to spend Rs 12,639 crore this year on urban development including several thousand crores on restoration, with the government announcing in the Assembly that Gujarat planned to spend Rs 5 lakh crore on the development of infrastructure facilities in the state.

Ironically, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Ambanis and Adanis continue to push Gujarat’s bid to host the summer Olympic Games in 2036. It will provide another opportunity for massive ‘infra development’, which probably will meet the same fate after the Games as recent constructions.