DNA Edit: Mumbai stampede reveals apathy of the worst kind

Torrential rains during Friday morning rush hour. Rumours, allegedly of a bridge collapse and short-circuit, trigger panic on Elphinstone station road bridge. A stampede ensues. Twenty two people lose their lives and 60 are injured.

A ghastly tragedy in the heart of the country’s financial district, where gleaming high-rises and slums jostle for space, has left the country stupefied. What followed as a post-disaster response was heartless, and chaotic! The civic administration and police in Mumbai once again turn out to be thoroughly incompetent even as the Railways and the BMC trade charges. Mumbai should stop being called a metro because the city has degenerated to the point of no-return.

This monsoon has highlighted time and again that life in the city comes cheap, and death is just round the corner, waiting to strike. Whose fault is it anyway? Consider the facts: The Elphinstone station foot over bridge that sees a massive footfall of office-goers is so narrow that barely two people can walk side-by-side.

Even the approach road to the bridge is dangerously constricted and often gets flooded during rains. One can well imagine the mayhem when people made a dash for safety in sheer fear. The predictable response of authorities doling out compensation and assuring a probe into the mishap cannot take away from the fact that after every disaster, once the outrage and condemnation peter out, it is back to normal. The Elphinstone bridge was built in an era when traffic in Mumbai was sparse, and people didn’t have to elbow each other to climb down the staircase.

Decades later with a voluminous increase in both population and vehicles, the bridge was gradually turning into a death trap. Apparently, the Railway ministry was considering constructing a 12m wide new foot over bridge to ease the flow of traffic and pedestrians in that area. What begs an explanation is why do city authorities and the Railways have to wait for a disaster to strike to realise the dire need of upgrading infrastructure?

It must be recalled that Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had told the Parliament in August that 100 bridges in the country are so dilapidated that they might collapse any moment. This means that more disasters are in the offing unless measures are expedited to undertake renovation work. Lack of planning and foresight coupled with an easy-going approach to work has been the bane of governments and civic bodies.

The Railways are in complete shambles and a complete overhaul of the existing infrastructure is the only solution to revive India’s biggest public transport network. Mumbai’s suburban railway, which is the lifeline for the city, is crumbling under the pressure of a massive growth in passenger numbers. It is sad but true that the honest, tax-paying citizen who leaves home every morning for work is never sure whether she will return home alive.