India seems to have shifted from bureaucratic inefficiency marked by slow activity to a greed for speed and profit that has ugly side effects.
Published Jun 16, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jun 16, 2025 | 9:00 AM
Images from the Ahmedabad plane crash site.
Synopsis: We celebrate “builders” by marking milestones from foundation stone-laying events or ribbon-cutting inaugural ceremonies, we forget what happens to many things once the biggies have departed after posing for photographs, self-congratulatory speeches and boastful full-page advertisements.
As news pours in on Air India’s flight AI171 crash in Ahmedabad that claimed the lives of all but one of the 242 people on board, social media mills are buzzing, trying to find the reasons behind the crash. Idle minds are speculating on this and that. I am not an aviation expert, but I do know that aircraft, like many other things, including the human body, need sound maintenance.
Last week, we saw sensational headlines, with one giving way to another. First up, we had a blame game over crowd management in Bengaluru that led to deaths at an ill-organized event, causing a stampede and taking the fun out of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) team’s victory in the Indian Premier League cricket tournament.
Things have come to a point in India where crowd management is in itself a maintenance industry. How do you maintain discipline in a crowded place, and that too, in an event resembling a flash mob created by impromptu invitations and viral posts on social media? Well-organized events, like the Kumbh Mela, which involves years of planning, are challenging enough. Managing crowds under political
pressure is a risky job for the police.
The Bengaluru event led to the scapegoating of police officers, but there is a limit to which the police can be blamed. Surging crowds and ambitious politicians ordering things from above lead to unhealthy pressures on government officials and the police. Somebody has to call this bluff.
You could say the same thing about a lot of things in India today. As the “Viksit Bharat” bandwagon that aims to make India a developed country by 2047 on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call gets crowded, there is a lot of emphasis on building this and that. If “Make In India” is about manufacturing industries, there has been a frenzied drive over the past decades to build airports, sea ports, highways, and
urban infrastructure.
All that sounds good, but there is a flip side to this: India seems to have shifted from bureaucratic inefficiency marked by slow activity to a greed for speed and profit that has ugly side effects.
The Air India crash is a wake-up call for us to consider the other side of the Build India Story: a need to maintain quality and safety in the construction of many things, evolve accountability and reasonableness at every level of operation and above all, maintain the facilities built under safe conditions to avoid mishaps, losses and accidents.
It is my firm belief that while we celebrate “builders” by marking milestones from foundation stone-laying events or ribbon-cutting inaugural ceremonies, we forget what happens to many things once the biggies have departed after posing for photographs, self-congratulatory speeches and boastful full-page advertisements.
A report by consulting firm iMARC Group said recently that it expects the market for maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) in India to reach 66.4 billion US dollars by 2033 from 56.1 billion in 2024, indicating a growth rate of 1.7% per annum over nine years. I find that appallingly low. While the report speaks of increased infrastructure investments, expanding aviation fleet, industrial growth and initiatives like the “Make In India” scheme among key business drivers I have this feeling that few pay attention to what it takes to build quality and safety in the first place and then maintain the whole thing later. This often involves unsung work and budgets that add to costs and therefore erode profits.
Hiring people to do routine operations is another onerous task. The absence of glamour or profit means fewer incentives — but the need for public safety is such that we need to pay more attention to this.
We already have issues with the growth in the digital economy — everything from the speed of servers deployed in railway booking to cyber frauds that need both prevention and later action to ensure that innocent people are not cheated or duped.
The good news (if I might call it so) is that big industrial conglomerates like the politically influential Adani Group are entering the business of maintenance.
Hopefully, what is not done by public outrage will be managed by industrial lobbying. Last year, Adani Defence Systems and Technologies (ADSTL) moved to acquire a controlling 86 percent stake in Air Works, India’s largest private sector aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) company, at a valuation of ₹400 crore.
But there is more to the safety and quality business than airports. We have had in recent years news of bridge collapses, urban floods, air pollution and highway potholes, all of which point to a need for the government to actively focus on the economics of O&M (operations and maintenance).
While the visually disturbing air crash stirs hearts, deaths caused by poor maintenance in roads and highways often go unnoticed, not to speak of deaths caused by uncovered electric cables, open manholes and rash driving on roads. Overspeeding has been cited among the causes of highway accidents.
CCTV cameras and drones are perhaps needed on a large scale, not to speak of real officials who care about traffic management.
We also need better urban planning. The AI171 crash took place in a medical college hostel right next to the Ahmedabad airport runway. Town planning needs to get better so that we do not cause undue congestion with structures that increase the probability of unsafe events.
In Delhi, it is depressing to see matchbox-style high-rise apartments right next to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The clover-leaf inter-change near one of India’s most prestigious public health facilities is symbolic of traffic congestion in a place where the poor flock to the neighbouring Safdarjung Hospital for treatment and ambulance movements are routine.
It is clear as day to me that urbanisation may be a driver of growth, but it has side effects that need urgent attention from policymakers and administrators.
(Views are personal. Edited by Majnu Babu).
