Are we upto the mark?

 

I thought of writing down some of my experiences in US which I thought would be useful and interesting to read. I would start with one of the small repairing work that went on, on one of the pavements on my way to office.

It was my first day to office and I was very much amused by the atmosphere of the northwestern university, you really never feel that you are inside the campus of a university. And as I was walking on the footpath watching different departments of the great northwestern university, I was obstructed by a damaged footpath and all of a sudden my imaginations of the US as a developed nation, having all good roads and footpaths took a diminishing path. For a moment it remembered me of the damaged roads and footpaths in India. I thought so it’s no different in US too. Then I continued with my sightseeing of different departments of northwestern university, of which I would write later. In the evening when I was coming back from office the footpath was in same damaged condition.

 

 

The second morning I took the same route to office as I didn’t want to get lost as I was still new in the city. But what I saw that day something very different, different in so many senses. I saw two young men taking some measurements around the yesterday’s damaged footpath. I know the damaged roads or footpaths are repaired in due time, in India too, though not always. But there was something really different in what I was seeing here. First of all the two young men who were working on the damaged footpath seemed to be well educated, may be some qualified civil engineers, as they were first taking measurements of the footpath so that they can do some planning on how this damage could be repaired. They had a van with them carrying all the modern equipments required by the civil engineers. Yesterday’s diminished path about the idea of US as a developed nation now started catching my mind again. If it had been India then there would have been a few unskilled labors working for such repairs if it had been repaired at all. Rarely do we see a qualified civil engineer supervising the works that the government authorities undertake. They are observed only on the sites of the large projects.

 

As I already mentioned both young men seemed to be qualified civil engineers to me and they didn’t have any third person working with them sp it was very clear that they were going to repair the footpath by their own hands, another rare seen on Indian land. May be we have excess of manpower and it’s affordable and convenient for government to have a few people working on such sites with pee-nuts of salaries given away. I agree with this practice of Indian authorities. But in that process we are loosing ground on two important nation building attributes, of which I would talk later in this article.

 

I didn’t take pain to actually talk to the two young men and went ahead towards office. When I was coming back from office I make it a point to take the same route as in the morning to see the repairing work that those two young men had done. I was very delighted to see that after the repairing done, the footpath was never look as it was damaged anytime. The repairing work that those two young men had done was so perfect that it didn’t left any mark of lack of skills on their part. And this is essentially what we lack in India. First the two young men didn’t feel any shame in repairing the footpath by their own hands, rather than just planning the repairing work and that resulted in a quality repairing work done by skillful hands. If this had been a case in some city in India then surely the repairs-men would have left thousands of signs behind to identify the repaired footpath even after years. This happens in any public constructions sites, be it a local road/footpath or a national highway. In today’s scenario, when everyone of talking of globalization and nation-states, infrastructure is given an extra point in achieving that state of so called truly global nation and we are missing on putting right efforts or adopting right attitude towards works of public interest. I call for civil engineers in India to do the work by their own hands but at least we can adapt a practice of having a qualified civil engineer supervising such works and stop the wrong practice of giving small works like repairing of roads to unqualified contractors, whom I have never seen doing some repairing work at least with some neatness in it that the vehicle drivers pains are reduced due to that repairing work. I always find it the other way, after some damaged road is repaired it becomes more painful to drive on such repaired roads.

The other thing, not applicable just to the public construction works but to any kind of government activity, is the devotion with which the two young men were working. They did the work as if it was a part of their house and a responsibility. Both these qualities are very important in the process of nation building. The progress in private sector is not going to make our nation a developed nation. That’s only going to create uneven distribution of wealth with very poor public facilities. We need same amount of efforts being taken in different government initiatives with these two qualities instilled in every person working for those activities, and then only would we be able to enjoy the status of being a developed nation in all its senses.