Lodged at the bottom of a 70 foot well, her life has been endangered by lack of oxygen. There have been spirited debates on television about the lack of coordination in the rescue effort. I hope that the child will come out alive out of this horrible experience, thanks to the brave men of the Indian army who have risked their own lives in the effort to rescue her.
What does
the nation have to learn from this “accident”? TV anchors have yelled at the
authorities who had turned a blind eye to a bore-well being dug in close proximity
to a residential building. The callous builders have left the well uncapped,
knowing that it is a death-trap for children going near it. I think of the
general disregard for the law in the construction industry. This is not
isolated as road accidents claim tens of thousands of lives every year due to
disregard for traffic rules. Non-implementation of traffic rules is something
India has accepted without any protest. Yesterday I travelled a hundred
kilometers on a toll road after sunset and passed well over a hundred trucks. Very
few had red lights on at the back. School buses regularly crush children while
reversing, because the drivers are unfit to be trusted with any vehicle – none
of them has any difficulty in buying a driver’s license.
Coming back
to lax implementation of building codes – an astute commentator on TV said “If
there is an earthquake in Delhi tomorrow, hundreds of thousands will die”. What
agency can deal with ten thousand buildings collapsing at one stroke? How will
the hospitals cope with the event? The situation looks bleak for many cities
and towns in India. The majority of buildings have violated building codes one
way or another. They are death-traps as surely as uncapped bore-wells are.
Corruption
is not confined to the politicians and high level bureaucrat. It is rampant in every city administration.
Mahi’s plight should wake up the nation to this peril. I hope it does.
I will
conclude by referring to the Wikipedia which says that the word bureaucrat is one of the toughest words to
spell. Tongue in cheek, it suggests using the abbreviation “crat”!
1 comment:
Mahi was brought out of the well and rushed to a hospital a few hours after this was written. The hospital reported that she was dead on arrival.
There is only one way for the nation to try to atone for this. Start enforcing rules strictly in the construction industry. We should also ban the practice of children being carried on two-wheelers. It is frightening to see men driving two-whellers, well-protected by helmets, while a woman sits on the pillion clutching one or two children. Under the law, they don't need helmets! The law makers seem to think that they are expendable.
Ramani
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