By Maj Gen (Dr) TS Sidana, AVSM, VSM ( Retd )
Infrastructure is defined as basic physical and organizational structures and facilities needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. The investment in infrastructure by a nation is also the prime mover for large scale purposeful employment and is a big contributor to GDP growth. It is estimated that Rs 100 spent on infrastructure results in Rs 175- 200 in GDP growth. The finance minister came in for high praise when she announced a quantum jump with a hefty budget allocation of nearly 10 lakh crores in the 2023 budget towards infrastructure development. Combined with allocation to states, it works out to an effective 13.5 lakh crores, with railways getting the highest ever allotment of 2.4 lakh crores and Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways being allotted 2.7 lakh crore, nearly one third higher than the previous year, power sector got an increase of 29 percent to 1.6 lakh crore and the rest going towards ports, telecom and digital infrastructure etc. Housing and urban infrastructure gets around 76 thousand crores. There is a special focus on infrastructure in the North East and Northern borders in the Himalayas with tunnels, roads, dams, rail and power transmission. This will not only help the local population in these remote areas but also strengthen the ability to deploy our armed forces against our adversaries.
While the experts were scrambling to work out the impact of the quantum of allocation, the country was jolted by two major accidents, within a span of a few of days of each other last month. One, the Odisha train tragedy involving three trains that killed nearly 300 people and injured over 1,100; and second, the collapse of the four-lane bridge over river Ganga being constructed at a cost of Rs1,716 crore by the state PWD in Bhagalpur, Bihar. Roads and highways also have numerous instances of sinking, flooding during rains and spalling of concrete from flyovers and bridges. Furthermore, every year, approximately 1.5 lakh people lose their lives on Indian roads because of accidents. Road accidents in India invariably get blamed on vehicle conditions, poor traffic discipline and bad weather. Dig deeper and road conditions like potholes, water logging and poor road geometry come to the fore. Much reported unfortunate accident of former Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry on September 4 last year highlighted the sudden narrowing of the road and non-existent sign posting.
Story of the housing sector is no different with house collapses and structural deformities. Recent incidents of Chintels and Godrej Projects in Gurugram are just a few of the examples of poor quality of construction even by reputed builders. As per a recent report about 80 residential societies in Gurugram are seeking structural audit because of sagging balconies, collapses, seepage and host of other structural issues. Story is no different in Pune, Bengaluru or Mumbai. In one of the surveys, in the NCR, 50 percent of sewage treatment plants were found ineffective or only partially effective. A combination of intense infrastructure development in terms of roads, tunnels, power and intense construction activity of residential and commercial complexes showed up in the worst possible manner in Joshimath culminating into huge cracks in the buildings and roads in January this year. Many experts blame the NTPC hydroelectric power project and the Char Dham road project that involves widening of NH-58 as a trigger for the current sinking.
Common thread running through this uneasy narrative is ambitious infrastructure projects being undertaken at a rapid pace both by the Centre and the states that do not always take into consideration ecology, geology, drainage patterns, construction technologies, delivery mechanisms, ground realities and local expertise. They do not always meet the quality, health, safety and environment norms. Moreover, there is a lack of data sharing and coordination between various agencies undertaking project implementation in the same geographic locations. This problem has not gone unnoticed because in October 2020, Niti Aayog in Collaboration with Quality Council of India launched the ‘National Program and Project Management Policy Framework’ NPMPF, what the organisers called a radical reform in which the infrastructure projects are to be planned, designed and executed in India. InBoK Infrastructure Book of Knowledge was also launched on the lines of PMBOK Project Management Book of Knowledge but having much larger scope. The initiative is meant to certify professionals in infrastructure at various levels. While it will take time for the systems to evolve and seep in to make any worthwhile improvement in efficiency, the problems of poor envisioning, planning and last mile execution is unlikely to go away in a hurry.
Infrastructure projects pass through multiple stages from envisioning to planning to contracting, executing, closing, handover and operation. These projects are implemented through public and private organisations employing a variety of expertise, engineering equipment and technologies and have a significant impact on ecology and the environment. While many projects are greenfield, most build upon the existing facilities which itself needs upgradation and lack the safety standards and capacity for upgradation because of rapid change in technologies and user needs. Railway upgradation is one such example. It is a legacy system with inherent weaknesses and voids that have seen sporadic upgrades. Recent initiative of upgrading to multiple super-fast trains has to be built upon the existing infrastructure. The operations cannot be stopped and the time available to carry out interventions and upgrades is always at a premium.
Public projects are particularly at a greater risk of going astray because of a variety of challenges due to their complexity such as Political Complexity; Organizational Complexity; and Technological Complexity. At the top, there is a huge optimism bias normally described as a cognitive bias that causes top hierarchy to believe that the new ventures are less likely to experience negative events and hurdles disregarding the previous experiences and data. At the middle and lower end there is the challenge of meeting tangible and intangible expectations and the executives in the field are either not skilled enough or may not be sufficiently invested in the success of the project or venture.
How to ensure that the completed projects meet the end goals of performance, quality, sustainability and resilience without risk to health and safety of the workers and end users? Infrastructure projects must be seen through a triple bottom-line, meaning that benefits have to be measured not only by revenues but by other metrics too like whole life costs, public purpose, and environmental outcomes. To ensure that the delivered project meets the scope and envisaged quality, the DPR or the Detailed Project Report has to be meticulously compiled. Complete data especially of the ground, geology, drainage patterns, hydrology, ecology and seismic activity have to be captured before the plans are made. Problem here is that the DPR work itself is outsourced to private agencies. The capability, financial metrics, reach, ethics, and abstract contractual clauses often become the leading reasons that may determine success or failure of the project. Sometimes takeoff data such as traffic data, precipitation levels, availability of sewage for Sewage Treatment Plants, water demand, or density of population is wrongly fed. Since, the Public Private Partnership and Engineering Procurement and Construction have become the new modes of contracting. The design and quality factor are majorly the contractor’s responsibility and there lies the importance of experience, capacity and expertise which is often either overlooked or poorly benchmarked. Brownfield projects where the department or many government departments hold the data,inter-agency coordination, meshing the new with the existing and making the entire project as one poses a big risk. Because of the vague and conflicting clauses in the contracts, PPP projects become prone to disputes and arbitration resulting in poor project delivery. Project execution finally has to be undertaken by engineers and a mass of skilled and semi-skilled personnel. Last two decades have seen continuous depletion of core engineering capabilities because of shifting of focus to IT and management. Unfortunately, the industry does not reward core engineers ie., civil, mechanical and electrical engineers with corresponding salaries and rewards even though their job is much tougher. Finding diploma holders and skilled technicians has become a herculean task because the polytechnics, technical institutes and vocational diplomas have been put at the lowest grade of the food chain. These are the people who carry out the geology and topography survey, fix the electrical motors, set up earthing, get the concrete poured in the piles, check cabling of suspension bridges, lay the rail lines and connect power cables. In a recent survey, it was found that there was no worthwhile industry standard to benchmark their skill levels and method of fixing their KPIs other than duration of experience or absence of negative inputs. Last but not the least is operation and maintenance. This aspect has to form part of the design criteria itself.
Ambitious infrastructure projects can only be successful if there is a clear enunciation of project scope, strategic alignment and control, top management support and accountability, utilize modern project management processes, follow proper quality management systems and have professionally qualified and motivated personnel. World is moving to Quality 4.0 and Design Thinking using modern machinery, digital technologies, robots, sensors, cyber physical systems and data capture using cloud computing and AI. Planning and design teams need to ensure that they understand the capabilities and leverage these systems at early stages if projects have to be made robust and resilient. Today, it is possible to carry out aerial surveys through drones, study the underground strata through Ground Penetration Radars and Remote Sensing Satellites and carry out computer simulations. Funds used at the planning and design stage ensure obviate deviations and failures at later stages. Theory of chaos completely applies to infrastructure projects which says that chaos is the science of surprises, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable. It teaches us to expect the unexpected. One cannot forget the Butterfly Effect: This effect grants the power to cause a hurricane in China to a butterfly flapping its wings in New Mexico. It may take a long time, but the connection is real. Similarly, a very small mistake at the initial stages of the project can cause catastrophic effects at the delivery stage.
India is on the cusp of an infrastructure boom. Railway line to high altitude areas of Ladakh, Railroad tunnel beneath the River Brahmaputra, Arunachal Frontier Highway and Mumbai Trans Harbour Link Bridge, are just a few of the ambitious projects that will come up in the coming decade not to miss hydroelectric dams, high speed trains, highways, seaports, power projects, airports, river navigation projects, solar power hubs, metro rails and real estate projects coming up all over the country. If India has to meet the infrastructure challenge and truly become a developed country by 2047 as envisioned by our Prime Minister Narender Modi, then, it is high time that all risks are properly identified, evaluated and provided through modern management systems to ensure successful delivery of high-quality infrastructure that deliver value and do not compromise with health, safety and sustainability of our ecology and planet earth.
The author is an Indian Army veteran and has served in various parts of the country and in Africa in varied command, staff and technocratic appointments. Presently, he is a Visiting Professor in School of Planning and Architecture and an Assessor with National Accreditation Board of Quality Council of India, New Delhi.
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