Editor,
In Meghalaya, it is bad enough that we don’t have good roads; maintenance of the roads we have also leaves much to be desired. How long does it take, for example, for a pothole or cracks on a road to get fixed? How long does it take for the problem to even get noticed by the PWD or other government entities concerned? Back in 1993 when I was still a Class VII student, I recall two specific instances when I was delayed in my trip to the examination hall due to bad traffic congestion at certain points on my route. The congestion was, in one instance, simply due to a large pothole in the road, and in the other, due to an uneven break across the road where a pipe had apparently been laid. In both instances, all passing vehicles had to slow down to a near halt to avoid jolting their passengers and damaging their suspension systems, thereby holding up all approaching traffic up to a kilometer long and beyond. After enduring such delays for some time, I stepped down from the bus but to my surprise I saw our headmaster walking on foot en route to the school. I followed him but reached 30 minutes late for my examination. There has been no change between then and now.
Often we hear the lament that tribals don’t have a culture of maintenance. We like to build new things, but hardly pay attention—and allocate appropriate budgets—for maintaining them. This appears to hold true for both public and private structures; whether roads, bridges, buildings, toilets parking lots or other facilities. Preventive maintenance seems almost an alien concept to us, and reactive maintenance—doing repairs when the problem is already there—is, more often than not, very late in coming. There are too many examples to be quoted. It is enough to step out of your own house to notice many unrepaired roads, shattered buildings, unusable toilets etc.…. One wonders why it didn’t happen much sooner, and had to wait until we had attained notoriety for having the reputedly worst roads in the world, before someone finally acted.
Traffic congestion is now a fact of life in Shillong and other major cities in the country. In not a few instances, congestion and traffic slowdowns are simply due to a pothole or break in the road needing repair or in some cases a local taxi simply stopping for passengers. Is there a way we can ensure that repairs and proper remedial measures are done promptly before they impose much larger costs on everyone? Will we have to perennially curse the PWD or the local governments for failure to maintain our roads properly and promptly?
I believe, there is a way, and to my knowledge, Canada, among others, has demonstrated how this can be done. The Canadian province of British Columbia pioneered the outsourcing of long-term road maintenance to the private sector, and entered the first round of performance-based contracts in road maintenance nearly three decades ago. The underlying principle behind the move was that the government’s role is to manage—that is, to plan, facilitate and catalyze the economy—while the private sector should deliver government programs when it can do so effectively, subject to protection of the public interest. To minimize dislocation of road maintenance, government employees were assisted in setting up contractor companies that could bid for the maintenance contracts, while others simply transferred to existing contractor firms. The provinces of Alberta and Ontario later followed this example and were proven to be very effective.
Experience tells us that public-private partnerships can work well in infrastructure construction. The experience of Canada and elsewhere shows, public-private partnerships for road maintenance works well, too. Maybe it’s time our governments tapped public-private partnerships for long-term maintenance of our roads as well. This may be yet another answer to alleviating our bad traffic conditions and road conditions.
Yours etc.,
Michael Makri,
Vie email
Unsung heroes
Editor, ,
Kudos to all bank employees of India who are working hard and leading the “Fight Against Corruption” from front. All sacrifices are being made by thousands of bank employees just to keep our economy running and dispense currency notes for the people who have been waiting. They have been facing a tough time in handling the sea of people standing in queues at the bank branches. Bank officials and staff are reaching their respective branches as early as 8am and working till late hours to clear the day’s work. They are even working at weekends with an intention to bring back the situation to normal. They are trying their best, handling myriad teething problems and frayed tempers of people standing in long queues for hours. The staff seating at the counter have to deal with “boiling” situations whenever cash on their desk runs dry. Despite, long work hours, no leave and high stress levels, bank officials draw the ire of the milling crowd outside. Add to this the systemic problems and fatigue — the life of bank employees has become a nightmare in the last two weeks. With millions of currency notes being counted every day, the work hours at the banks are tightly strung. There is no time for breaks except a brief lunch hour and the pressure is grueling. It is the cashiers who are bearing the brunt of this. While the manpower at banks is ready to deliver, the technology and other logistics fail at times, putting the bankers in a nightmare situation vis-a-vis the public. Banks must chalk out a ‘compensation plan’ for their employees, who have been working long hours to cope with the unprecedented rise in customer visits, after the govt’s surprise demonetisation move.
Yours etc.,
Akash Kumar,
Jagraon, Punjab