Patna,(BiharTimes):Ironically, while Patnaites are keeping their fingers crossed and praying for better tomorrow a division bench of the Patna high court comprising Justice Navin Sinha and Justice Vikash Jain observed on Monday that “Patna is the biggest urban chaos and we have a peculiar privilege of having grown up in a totally chaotic manner.” 

The high court has been taking the Patna Municipal Corporation to task but the builder-mafia––enjoying political patronage––are going on full steam violating all sorts of norms and rules. 

Patna, being the state capital, at least, has the privilege of getting media publicity. The flood situation in Khagaria, Bhagalpur, Bhojpur, Begusarai, Buxar, Saran, Katihar etc is grim with little work done in the name of relief and rescue operation. Officially around 200 people have already lost their lives.

But Patna’s problem is more man-made than perhaps other districts. Here every law was flouted with impunity though it is the state capital. In the name of drainage there are few nullahs, which remain choked and are hardly cleaned before the monsoon. 

The contractor-mafia and the media would glorify the construction of a few good roads, but seldom would they talk of sewareges as road making is much easier job. 

The government engineers have made hell of the state capital when they elevated several important roads by about 20 inches. In the process they reduced the link roads, lanes and by-lanes into ditches.

What is strange is that the authorities are not yet prepared to accept the gravity of the situation. Only on Monday the executive officer of Patna Municipal Corporation (New Capital Circle), Shashank Shekar Sinha, denied that there was water-logging on Station Road and Shashtri Nagar. 

“Heavy rainfall caused some water to accumulate on either sides of the road but the sump house on SP Verma Road soon helped to flush it out,” he was quoted in the media as saying.
With this approach of authorities, and builders––in spite of high court’s repeated intervention––still going full speed with their construction work, one can hardly see a much promised new Patna. Architects and investors may make a beeline and media may continue to sketch rosy picture. But why not: It is the construction boom which helped Bihar achieved such a high growth rate.
It is other thing that social activist and commentator, Priyadarshi, think almost on the line of the judges of high court, that is, Patna is perhaps the dirtiest state capital of the world