India may be slouching towards superpowerdom, but while we cheer the nation on from the sidelines, are we forgetting one fundamental prerequisite for any global pin-up nation: the value a country places on the lives of its citizens? Last heard, Bhagalpur in Bihar is a part of India. But surely, 40 lives being casually snuffed out after the collapse of a railway bridge cannot be part of the happy litany of tales that includes a galloping economic growth, a growing knowledge pool, beefed-up defence systems and Bollywood’s recognition as a global cultural giant. Just to ensure that the Bhagalpur incident is not seen as a random example pulled out of the hat by the nattering nabobs of negativism, it would be wise to know that there are some 76,000 railway bridges across networked India that pose a serious danger to Indian railway passengers. It is one thing to mope about the tragic callousness that led to the loss of innocent lives and quite another to ensure that such deaths do not recur.
Under the Special Railway Safety Fund (SRSF), 280 ‘dangerous’ bridges were rehabilitated. Another 58 bridges will be repaired or replaced over the next year. Out of the 2,300 bridges of this nature identified for rehabilitation in 2001, thousands will, therefore, remain unrepaired. So, while the Railway Ministry revels at the wonderful turnaround that it has managed in the ledger books and the concerned Minister is invited to management institutions to lecture on growth models, train travel will remain a game of Russian roulette with lives at stake.
There is no scarcity of funds for a nationwide replacement of over-100-year-old bridges. In 2002, the H.R. Khanna Committee recommended the setting up of a special task force to inspect damaged railway bridges. It had also recommended that all ‘dangerous’ bridges be repaired by 2007. With a year to go and about Rs 20,000 crore to spend on repairs and modernisation, there are no obstacles before the Railway Ministry to ensure that passengers do not die pointlessly as in Bhagalpur. If the ministry can’t do the job of repairs and replacements alone, then it should bring in experienced players to help by, say, issuing a global tender — instead of sitting on false pride and endangering lives. But then, with great aspirations come the dangers of great denials, not to mention great apathy. It is upto us, both the leadership and the people, how we want to define progress. Not to mention, superpowerdom.