NewsIP wishes to place on record its heartfelt condolences on the recent fire which reportedly took the lives of several humans mostly children in the city of Rajkot.
The reported lapses which led to this avoidable calamity in Rajkot Gaming Zone, must indeed be thoroughly investigated and procedures laid down to avoid them in future.
There are many who are disturbed by the almost regular instances of man made disasters in state of Gujrat. The Plague which hit Surat in 1994 claimed 54 lives, the Morbi Bridge Collapse in 2022 had 141 victims, the Earthquake of 2001in Bhuj had casualty close to 13,572. These are just a few instances in Gujarat in recent times. The impact of these disasters could have been much lesser with better planning, preventive measures and mitigation.
One is thus forced to ask a question why is Gujarat so vulnerable? Many cities of this developed and vibrant state seem to be vulnerable. While most buildings,office spaces,malls and flats are ultramodern the civic services somehow don’t seem to be up to mark. There is a lack of approach roads, public amenities, effective public transport and other civic services. Developers are in a haste to construct buildings and sell them in haste without any attendant and commensurate civic and essential services being developed. Some may have divergent views but this seems to be true in most Gujarat cities and towns. There is rapid urbanization and boom in real estate in Gujarat but the essential services are being overlooked.
NewsIP’s editorial team wonders who in the Gujarat Bureaucracy is keeping the CM or even PM (whose home state it is) in the dark and bringing a bad name to the polity. White collared crime may have set deep roots. There is an urgent and absolute need to eradicate the callousness towards human lives in name of development before history of disasters repeats itself.