HOW OUR ADMINISTRATION CRIPPLES US:

Article - 24 Week 33

HOW OUR ADMINISTRATION CRIPPLES US: 

The cost of bad administrative system in our country is not only 'all brakes and no accelerator' on our economy & life in general; but also a disturbing menace to our planet earth. India grows when the government sleeps and when government wakes up the planet earth shudders. This has been statistically & empirically proven yet again. Let's take the example of the ecological disaster of the leaking MSC Chitra that has shaken Mumbai's population and our small shipping industry. Let's ignore the causes and focus on how we have responded, post collision.

First : Stop all shipping traffic to JNP & MbPT

Second : Confused acts and hollow words of calm

Third : Wait for things to happen, while not containing damage

Was it really necessary to stop all traffic movements in the channel and approaches paralyzing the trade? The argument pushed by the authorities is that the floating containers might have sunk in the channels & blocked the passage. Let's assume that the complete channel is filled with sunk containers. Containers can not stand vertically in the channel, because it would be unstable to stay that way. If really a few malicious containers, out of the reported 200, decide to sleep or swim in a few square meters of the  channel when millions of square Kilometers are open to them, that would amount to a risk of a probability of 1 to a million - needle in a hay stack. Even then, all the poor containers can claim are only 2.43 meters of height from the bottom. The chances of them floating like submarines makes them more benign anyway with their mass neutered by by floatation in a moving tidal water. If 12.5 meters navigable depth was available, we could reduce this to 10.07 meters and allow navigation. Why stop completely?

The maximum weight of a container is about 29 Tons and average weight about 15T. When submerged in water, buoyancy would negate this by the volume of the cargo & the net of the container volume too. What harm could this submerged 29T container do to a mass of 30,000 T giant moving at maneuvering speed? It is like those stories about how the big whales used to collide with sailing ships, when Lord Neptune was upset!

How long does it take to take a few boats to echo sound the channel any way? Echo sounders are fitted on all vessels and even boats. It's cheap and uncomplicated matter. This stopping of navigation for so many days just tells us how our administration works. Insensitivity, inaction, and indecisions are the hallmarks of our babudum. Add a pinch of politics and there you have a desi recipe of muted public suffering, agony and an ecological disaster. Since the little Indian can not question the government that stays miles away from us, he has no where to run except his God. I wish the government had gone off to sleep during this period and God stayed awake! We are already severely pained by the resulting pollution on the coastal life and the diet of millions of people. Seizure of our vital port by such powerful stalling forces of the government was unwarranted & uncalled for. 

Coming to the drama on pollution, what prevented us from cordoning off the leaking ship with float-oil-barriers? In a tidal water the floats can be held in place by tug-boats.  Even ship's polypropylene ropes could be used as a temporary solution till arrival of the  foam-floats. Later the trapped oil could be sucked out by skimmer boats. Spraying neutralizing chemicals could have complemented this act. 

By allowing the oil to spread out, we have ballooned the containable problems into an ecological disaster. Ours was no high seas with heavy swell and winds like BP spilling. In a sheltered road with only the tide to fight, we could have contained the damage. 

Alas! The next legislation may stop all ships calling into Mumbai if they happen have bunkers onboard!