Launch of the ‘Call Before U Dig’ application is a welcome move by the Prime Minister. It will definitely help in saving thousands of crores of rupees. But, there is another area needing attention -- huge loss of money caused due to unplanned work. Almost all cities in India are unplanned. Unplanned development has turned cities into eyesore. The illiterate (lacking knowledge of city management) and lazy (getting salary even without working well) Government employees have worsened the situation. Corruption in city management, too, is causing a huge loss of taxpayers’ money and also making citizens’ lives miserable as complaints about city woes are never addressed.

There are numerous examples of unplanned development causing loss of taxpayers’ money and posing risk to citizens’ lives. A recent example is works done for Civil20 meeting in Nagpur. Had these works been done with proper planning and management in advance, Nagpur would have become permanently clean and beautiful. Another example is Ram Jhula cable-stayed bridge, for which newly constructed roads had to be demolished for alignment with second such bridge. Many roads are built without planning and then dug immediately for laying cables. No lesson is learnt from the old ‘design disaster’ flyover in front of railway station. Many new flyovers and roads have become design disasters. Instead of easing traffic congestion, they have contributed to increasing traffic jams and chaos. Many new road-dividers, which were 2 feet high a couple of years back, have disappeared as a result of relayering and asphalting. Increase in the level of roads has become a nightmare for citizens as rainwater enters their homes. On many roads, only single lane relayering is done, making roads dangerously uneven for two-wheeler riders and may result in accidents, sometimes fatal. On many newly relayered roads, manholes are not levelled, making those dangerous for especially pedestrians and two-wheeler riders.

Many areas do not have proper footpaths even after 75 years of Independence. But, in some areas, well-built footpaths are destroyed for re-tiling again and again. This is completely unacceptable. Fast and haphazardly growing thorny Bougainvillea plants on road-dividers at many places require regular trimming, which is not done by NMC. These overgrown branches reduce usable road-width and also damage vehicles’ paint-work. Many people got injured directly or indirectly because of these overgrown plants on road-dividers.