Sunday, September 13

Where violation is a virtue


It's taken an overnight tunnel site accident that resulted in loss of one, perhaps 3, innocent lives in a highway project of my company that compelled me to put pen to paper on what's increasingly becoming a general, undiagnosed malaise among our countrymen.

I feel fortunate and thank God for keeping me safe and away from that tragedy as it was no later than three days since I visited that tunnel myself as part of an audit in that project. While I lay here, hale, I feel terrible about those poor workers who're no more. Trapped under the collapsed earth, inside, with hardly any air to breathe, few may even be clinging on, fighting for dear life for rescue to reach. I pray they all are rescued before their last throes.

Times like these one wonders if science has failed us, or have we failed to harness it to the extent we could. Or maybe there's something else. Engineering is always a challenge in a diverse geography like India. And our knowledge of niche engineering is largely confined only to the limits of the experience our resident engineers possess and our education system, or the lack of it. A fortunate few pursue and obtain Class I, state of the art knowhow abroad. But largely, subject specialisation lacks variety and depth overall in our institutes. The system, we know, doesn't merit knowledge and aptitude, but reproduction of content on paper. An assembly line of doubtful degrees moves every year. We feel the pinch when on the ground, while undertaking construction in tough terrain. While fighting the forces of nature, our dependence on imported knowledge increases. We then realise we hardly possess expertise to doubt an advice in a technical and practicable way. The advice may prove something that may fail us in the most dire of need as the matter is usually taken as Gospel truth and unquestionable, especially when it emanates from a national belonging to a developed country.

We trust, but fail to verify.

Again, such outsourced solutions to homegrown, inherent problems often assume a level of work culture and discipline that's widely seen and followed abroad, usually in the home country of the advisors or consultants. The work ethos in Indian projects is such that negligence is often perceived as a virtue. A project manager found ignoring safety and environmental measures is deemed practical and pragmatic, and someone who's really driving the work at a scorching pace. A man like him is most likely to meet timelines and reduce the company's woes. With debts piling up, banks increasingly sceptical on further lending, mounting interest costs and an unsympathetic Clients, infra Cos are in dire straits no doubt. So Mr. Bulldozer eventually becomes the apple of the CEO's eyes, his numero uno, and almost always a potential elevation come March. These modern day minotaurs are notorious for ignoring workers health, hygiene and camp quarters. Tragically, they overlook a fact that foreign advice often presumes good to excellent working conditions and systems, and an uncompromising dedication to quality.

In both, he bargains while his workers pay a price.

I also find some other indirect reasons for worker deaths, accidents and general unsafe working conditions. They, in my view, are:
  1. Constant comparisons to China, that feed hallucinations of fast growth and imaginary catch up. Work is sped up full throttle as our Elephant (white) needs to fly past the flying dragon soon. 
  2. Unavailability and increasing rarity of Land as a resource and grants of other clearances. This leads to contractors making do with whatever is at hand and cutting corners in the process. 
  3. Unrealistic project durations set by the client, one who's fond of toothing it's own horn to market construction of 10, 20, 30 km per day to grab headlines. 
  4. Scarcity of construction materials especially sand and aggregates. These lead to acceptance of substandard works as rework costs using these materials are very high to the contractor. Clients and consultants often "sympathise" with the contractor. 
  5. Local problems and political interference leads to a feeling among contractors to just finish the damn job and get out of there. Environment, health, safety be damned.
  6. Most infra Cos are owner driven and hold no internationally accepted HR practices and almost no sense of accountability. Rarely do heads roll following a disaster at site. The buck never stops anywhere. 
  7. Last but not the least, palms of who's who of the project are invariably greased and a below average performance is "considered". 
Our population is like a large jute sack full of peas. Even if a pea or two pop out when we're running with the sack, it doesn't matter.

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