Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Getting Worse Before it Gets Better?

Those of you who thought Delhi has a better infrastructure than Mumbai or any other city in India, and I was one of them, are having to change their opinion rather rapidly. The whole city now seems to be "under construction" pretty much as it was before the Asiad in, I think, 1982. There is the metro whose digging seems to be happening everywhere fron Nehru Place to NOIDA, then there is this rather funny thing called High Speed Bus Corridor. For the life of me I can not fathom out why they need a high speed bus corridor when the problem with buses in Delhi always as been that they either move at very high speed or do not move at all waiting to be filled. Then of course there are civil works such as redoing the pavements, relaying the verges, recarpeting the roads, and construction of buildings which almost invariably spills over onto the roads. Add to that the half done flyovers at critical junctions like entry to NOIDA and Gurgaon which held up the early morning and late evening exit and entry from the dorm suburbs. Finally, of course there is the menace of monsoons which have left most of the roads in tatters.
Amid all these, there is dengue, malaria, viral fever and hepatitis.
If you think I am exaggerating, here is a personal example. Siince I have moved to this new locality in the heart of South Delhi I have had two flyovers, one under pass, one high volume underground water supply pipeline and now the High Speed Bus Corridor and metro have arrived. Not to mention minor iritants like trenches for electricity and phone lines which seem to be in a perpetual state of repair. That you would say is a mark of progress. But for me none of them are useful, they are useful for people who pass through my area to various dorms in the city. For me it means more crowd, more dust and more disease. Little wonder that the small campus that I live in has seen four cases of dengue in the last two years not to mention small things like malaria and viral fever.
At the end of this hectic building activity, I have realised that this is the best time to work in the cement industry. And I am hoping that the civil work in my neighbourhood would come to an end before I kick the bucket so that I can enjoy the fruits of my pain.

No comments: