Delhi airport disaster raises concerns about India’s infrastructure plans

NEW DELHI: The recent deadly roof collapse at New Delhi’s main airport was the latest in a series of safety incidents at construction sites in the country, raising concerns about India’s multi-billion dollar infrastructure project.

A portion of a canopy and pillars of a departure terminal at Indira Gandhi International Airport, one of the country’s busiest airports, collapsed on Friday morning due to heavy rains, killing at least one person and injuring several others.

The collapse also led to a temporary suspension of operations at the airport’s Terminal 1, which is used for domestic flights, affecting the travel plans of thousands of people.

The incident joins a long list of infrastructure incidents that have occurred in India in recent years and have raised questions about the rapid pace of mega construction projects in the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Delhi-based architect Narayan Moorthy blames many factors, including a “sloppy work culture,” frequent use of substandard materials, “reckless rush to complete projects so that some politician can inaugurate them on a pre-determined and politically significant date,” and lack of maintenance after completion.

“This whole cocktail leads to absolute disasters like the collapsed airport roof in Delhi, which left one helpless soul dead and many others injured… Similarly, the roof of the brand new Jabalpur airport collapsed, which fortunately had no human casualties but exposes our systemic rot,” he told Arab News.

“We should be ashamed of the quality of our supposedly ‘world-class’ buildings.”

A day before the accident in Delhi, part of the roof of Jabalpur airport in Rajasthan collapsed during heavy rains, and on Saturday a roof also collapsed in the passenger pick-up area of ​​Rajkot airport in Gujarat.

Four bridges recently collapsed in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, and an $80 billion underpass in Delhi, which opened last year just before India hosted the G20 summit, has been under water for several days, causing traffic disruptions on Delhi’s main thoroughfare.

As part of Modi’s construction boom, new infrastructure projects worth around 44.4 trillion rupees ($532 billion) will come online over the next two years, according to Bloomberg Economics.

Modi has presided over the opening ceremonies at many of these projects, as infrastructure modernization was a central part of his campaign in this year’s national elections that saw him win a third term as India’s prime minister. His government said it had built 80 new airports, modernized railway lines and added thousands of miles of highways in the past decade.

The projects have been criticised by India’s opposition leaders. Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Indian National Congress party, was one of the latest to accuse Modi’s government of corruption following Friday’s incidents.

“Corruption and criminal negligence are responsible for the collapse of the shoddy infrastructure that has collapsed like a house of cards in the past decade of the Modi government,” Kharge wrote on X.

Niranjan Sahoo, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, highlighted how under Modi’s government, infrastructure has been “turned into a vote-winning tool” on an unprecedented scale.

“Although the government has good intentions to rapidly expand infrastructure to meet the demands of a growing nation, it does so without sufficient attention to its upkeep, reliable maintenance and inspection,” Sahoo told Arab News.

“Never before has the country seen an infrastructure offensive of this kind, most of which took place before elections,” he added. “In some ways, infrastructure fits into populist narratives of bringing India into the fold of great powers. However, recent incidents are a severe test of India’s ambitions and capabilities.”

According to Prof AK Gosain, a civil engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, one of the main reasons for infrastructure failures is the “declining quality” of construction work. He added that “there is no accountability at the top” so that when problems arise, people at lower levels are always made scapegoats.

Anuj Srivastava, an architect at the School of Planning and Architecture in the Indian capital and a veteran of the Indian Army’s Corps of Engineers, also highlighted the lack of maintenance and accountability in India’s infrastructure projects, as well as indifference towards the environment in the face of a rapidly changing climate.

“The reasons for accidents and the collapse of infrastructure lie in the lack of consideration for the environment and the haste in planning and implementing projects. This confirms the saying ‘hasty times make slow times’,” Srivastava told Arab News.

“The infrastructure disaster is damaging India’s reputation in the world. The inappropriate rush to build a ‘world-class infrastructure’ and its subsequent collapse is damaging India’s reputation beyond repair.”