Crumbling Promises

“Failures are not just accidents.

They are (simply) the inevitable

consequences of fickle decisions

made long before the collapse.”

— Henri Petroski

Collapses never announce themselves politely and failure rarely arrives with warning sirens. Especially when they involve roads and bridges built to connect. Last year, Jaipur watched in horror as a section of road sagged after overnight rain to reveal a muddy void beneath. Vehicles teetered at the edge of what had been routine asphalt a few hours back. Just weeks earlier, the Gambhira Bridge – a span meant to symbolize connectivity and progress – failed catastrophically, turning an ordinary crossing into a scene of devastation and death. In Lucknow, stretches of highway developed craters in a single monsoon, turning commutes into a life-taking gamble. These were not cinematic outliers, but snapshots of a pattern: infrastructure built to enable motion was interrupting it, sometimes violently.

These episodes are not starters in the bone-crunching meal that national highways are offering India’s commuters. Each incident jolts public confidence as it violates a simple civic assumption: that roads and bridges are reliable elements of modern life. That they are supposed to fade into the background, functioning silently and efficiently as families and vehicles move across them. When they fail, the rupture is not just structural, but psychological too. Citizens question not just the integrity of concrete and asphalt, but the systems entrusted with creating and maintaining them.

No Casual Whim This

India is in the midst of one of the largest infrastructure expansions in its history. New expressways are slicing across states, flyovers are multiplying in cities and bridges are promising mobility once thought impossible. The ambition is real. But ambition sans endurance produces a troubling paradox. It creates assets that look impressive at their launch but struggle under pressures of weather, traffic and time. When a road cracks within months or a bridge collapses soon after commissioning, the issue is not cosmetic wear. It signals stress in the lifecycle of planning, engineering, execution or maintenance.

Infrastructure does not fail by whim. Roads deteriorate if water infiltrates inadequately compacted layers, when drainage is underspecified or when load assumptions underestimate real traffic. Bridges weaken when protective systems degrade, materials diverge from specs or inspections fail to detect distress. These mechanisms are not obscure or controversial. Civil engineering has long codified the pillars of durability: sturdy foundations, disciplined material control and lifecycle maintenance.

India’s operating environment amplifies these demands. Monsoon cycles introduce intense moisture stress. Temperature swings expand and contract materials. Traffic density and overloaded freight impose fatigue beyond design assumptions. Building for such realities requires not only technical competence but adherence to standards at every stage. If soil preparation is rushed, curing periods shortened or quality checks diluted, assets inherit vulnerabilities that surface within just months.

Systemic Gaps Galore

Recurring infrastructure distress is not anecdotal; it shows up in the country’s own audit corridors. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has flagged shortcomings in road and bridge works often, instances that go beyond isolated incidents and signal a deeper systemic gap. A CAG audit of the Uttar Pradesh’s Central Road Fund revealed long delays in road projects, instances of planning without surveys and irregularities in contractor payments. Of Rs 20,000 crore allocated, over Rs 6,400 crore remained unspent or poorly utilised, while crucial design elements like traffic and axle-load surveys were missing; factors that contribute to roads being badly engineered and prone to distress.

In road projects across Maharashtra, the CAG found that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had extended ‘undue benefits’ of over Rs 200 crore to developers by reducing penalties. It also highlighted ‘deficiencies in construction quality and maintenance’ in some cases, leading to raised eyebrows about how public funds were being blocked in poorly planned and executed projects.

Other audits have shown that structural and design flaws are not rare. In a sample of bridge works examined by CAG, engineering lapses were identified, including inadequate geotechnical probes to wrongly-configured approach roads and weakened expansion joints. This led to bridges showing signs of foundational scour and material wear within their first few years of service.

The need for oversight has also been underlined by parliamentary committees. In Kerala, the Public Accounts Committee urged a CAG audit of national highway works after stretches of NH66 developed structural damage, highlighting discrepancies between design and execution. The auditor’s reports link these issues to broader operational weaknesses. In a blog on India’s roads, CAG audits revealed glaring design deficiencies, such as inadequate lane widths, poor curvature handling and missing safety features. These led to accidents and accelerated pavement deterioration.

Virtual Pandora’s Box

Together, these reports expose a theme: inadequate planning and surveys, slipshod quality control, weak contract enforcement and limited maintenance. These issues may appear discrete, but in aggregate they form the anatomy of systemic strain. They explain why roads engineered for decades of use fracture after a single monsoon, why bridge elements show early wear and why surface water, traffic stress and design gaps interact to damage infrastructure that should have lasted much longer.

Rather than being an evidence of incompetence, these audits show gaps in accountability, lifecycle planning and execution discipline. Weak feedback mechanisms between design, construction and maintenance allow early warnings to go unheeded. Budget cycles position new projects over regular maintenance. In the absence of mandatory quality audits, sub-standard work is carried out, until a collapse occurs.

This is not unique to India. Many nations struggle with infrastructure sustainability, but the frequency and scale of the audit findings in India underscore the need for structural reform in how we plan, execute and maintain core transport networks.

Yes, infrastructure stress is a worldwide challenge, but responses vary. In the US, aging bridges and highways are managed through structured inspection, asset-rating and preventive maintenance programmes that intercept deterioration before crisis hits. Europe follows similar lifecycle planning, treating maintenance as essential civic expenditure, not discretionary spending. China demonstrates how rapid expansion can coexist with disciplined execution; inspection regimes are cast in stone and defects corrected before escalation.

The lesson is not on governance, but integration; ensuring that engineering rigor and administrative follow-through move in tandem. Admittedly, India’s democratic scale requires its own model, but the principle is universal. Infrastructure is not a one-time victory; it is a living asset demanding continuous upkeep. Roads and bridges must be managed as evolving systems, monitored with data, maintained proactively and financed with lifecycle thinking.

Beyond Being Decorative

Durable infrastructure is not decorative; it is foundational. Independent audits, material verification and standardized inspection can significantly extend asset life. Embedding lifecycle maintenance into project financing ensures upkeep is planned rather than improvised. Emerging technologies such as structural sensors, digital asset mapping and predictive analytics allow distress to be identified long before visible failure. Cultural calibration is equally important. The citizens who fund the core sector through taxes and tolls seek reliability, not spectacle.

Collapsed bridges and potholed roads are more than a headline; they betray the breaking of a social promise. If that promise falters, faith erodes alongside concrete. Our development is not a derivative of how much we build, but on how well our structures withstand time and stress. What is needed is able stewardship, not showcase. The measure of progress is not the number of inaugurations, but the dependability of roads withstanding monsoon and heat, bridges aging without drama and networks serving without surprise. That is infrastructure worthy of a nation intent on moving forward.

The writer can be reached on narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal. The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist