Access to Terminal one at New Delhi airport has been cordoned off. Dozens of helmeted workers in fluorescent orange vests have replaced passengers and their luggage. The usual comings and goings of cabs have been replaced by backhoe loaders and other construction equipment. Since June 28, all operations have been suspended. On that day, the first rain of the monsoon season caused the collapse of a huge canopy, leaving eight people injured and one dead, even though the airport had just been renovated and proudly inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on March 10.
The accident provoked outrage in India and the opposition was quick to denounce “criminal negligence,” citing “shoddy” construction that was collapsing like a “house of cards.” Across the country, infrastructure is collapsing one after another. The airports at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh state, also newly inaugurated by Modi in March, Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, and Rajkot in Gujarat, also collapsed due to rainfall at the end of June. In the state of Bihar, 14 bridges, some of which had not even been completed, collapsed in the space of just one month forcing the local authorities to take action. Fifteen engineers were suspended and an inspection of all old bridges in the northeastern region of India was demanded.
This series of disasters brings the ambitions of Modi’s government into disrepute. The Hindu nationalists, in power since 2014, are building at a frantic pace. Roads, airports, bridges, modernization of the rail network. Whatever the cost, the government wants to make up for India’s backwardness in this area. The world’s fifth largest economy still lacks the infrastructure to ensure its development and fulfill its ambitions. The prime minister has promised to make India a developed country by 2047.
The government’s average annual spending on infrastructure stood at 5.1% of GDP between 2020 and 2021 and between 2023 and 2024. “According to the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, India’s infrastructure ranking is better than that of many wealthier countries,” pointed out Suyash Rai, a researcher and deputy director of Carnegie India, a think tank, highlighting the progress made on this front. India ranks ahead of Hungary and Croatia. “Over the last few decades, the country has invested heavily but a lot of infrastructure is already in a sorry state, as it has to be maintained, and there is generally no provision for this in the budget,” Rai emphasized.
A road tunnel systematically flooded
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