Immediate Relief Archives - understand-culture

The Smog Tower

On August 23, 2021, the Delhi government inaugurated a smog tower at Connaught Place. Reports put its cost at 20 to 23 crore rupees. In November 2023, as the pollution season began, it was shut down. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee told the National Green Tribunal: “Smog towers are ineffective at controlling air pollution.”

Delhi’s winters bring emergency measures. Under the odd-even rule, cars with odd and even number plates drive on alternate days. It ran in January and April 2016 and again in November 2019. ThePrint counted 17 times that the Graded Response Action Plan was imposed between January 2025 and January 2026. In 13 of them, the order came after pollution had already reached the threshold.

Potholes Every Monsoon

Ahead of the 2024 monsoon, Mumbai’s municipal corporation planned to spend 106 crore rupees “for the pothole-free monsoon this year,” the Free Press Journal reported. In 2022 it said it had filled more than 18,000 potholes between April 1 and July 27.

In August 2023 the Bombay High Court heard a contempt plea over its own order on potholes from 2018. “Are five years not enough to remove potholes?” the judges asked. “Is this a regular feature during the monsoon?”

Storm Water Drains

BRIMSTOWAD is the plan to rebuild the storm water drains of Mumbai. Consultants were first appointed in 1989, and a proposal followed in 1993. “The project was not acted upon due to lack of funds till the catastrophic floods in 2005,” Wikipedia notes. On July 26, 2005, catastrophic floods hit the city.

In October 2020 the Free Press Journal reported that 27 of the project’s 58 works had been completed by 2019 and that the cost had crossed 4,000 crore rupees. “It is yet to be completed,” the paper wrote.

The Inverter

When the power fails, many Indian homes switch to an inverter, a battery that keeps the lights and fans running. In an online survey by LocalCircles, released in May 2022, 41 percent of respondents said they had an inverter or a similar device and used it during outages. Twelve percent said they had no backup and simply lived with the outage.

The respondents chose to take part, so the figures are not a national count.

Panic and Rain

On September 29, 2017, a stampede at Elphinstone Road station in Mumbai killed at least 23 people. Western Railway’s chief spokesman, Ravinder Bhaker, gave its finding: “The incident was caused due to panic and confusion created on the bridge coupled with rains.” He added: “No one can be held responsible for the incident.”

The Report That Was Not Released

On September 7, 2019, ISRO lost contact with the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-2 during its descent to the Moon. A Failure Analysis Committee examined the loss. “Unlike ISRO’s previous record, the report of the Failure Analysis Committee has not been made public,” Wikipedia notes.

A request for the report under the Right to Information Act was refused: “this information cannot be divulged under Section 8(1) of the RTI Act.”

Reopened Without a Certificate

On October 30, 2022, the suspension bridge in Morbi, Gujarat, collapsed. Reports give 135 or 141 deaths. The bridge had reopened four days earlier, after about six months of repair work. The company Oreva had been given the bridge for operation and maintenance for 15 years. A municipal official, Sandeepsinh Zala, said that the municipality “had not yet issued any fitness certificate.”

In February 2023 a special investigation team reported that 22 of the 49 wires in one cable were corroded, Scroll wrote. According to Reuters, the team found that “the main cables were not inspected or replaced.”

The 1962 Report

After India’s defeat in the war with China in 1962, two army officers, Henderson Brooks and Prem Bhagat, wrote a report on what went wrong. “The Government of India has left the report classified, citing national security reasons.”

On March 17, 2014, the journalist Neville Maxwell posted part of the report on his website. In Parliament, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said its contents were “not only extremely sensitive but are of current operational value.”