Death trap highway

When the lives of the people are at stake, no one should escape by shifting the blame onto others.

Recently, newly appointed Urban Development Minister Ram Kumari Jhakri brewed a storm in a teacup by taunting engineers for failing to place sewer lids properly. How is it, she pontificated, that the engineers have failed to recognise the need to cover manholes in a way that does not cause discomfort to pedestrians and motorcyclists? Like every other public official in the country, engineers would find one excuse or the other to shift the blame to others—careless officials from the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage Management or the callous contractor, among others—for the inexplicable negligence and the resultant accidents. The blame game, after all, is the best sport that Nepali public officials are fond of. But Jhakri spoke for a vast majority of the country's population when she asked why the individuals and institutions tasked with public infrastructure projects that are aimed at making people's lives comfortable care so less about the public.