At its unveiling, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it offered a “glimpse of what a developed India is going to look like”. Jawaharlal Nehru, the previous prime minister, once referred to dams as the “temples” of contemporary India.
The 22-kilometre bridge, which cost Rs 17,840 crore to build, reduces the two-hour travel time between central Mumbai and Navi Mumbai to roughly 20 minutes. It was initially imagined roughly 60 years ago. Similar large connectivity projects that serve as development showcases are the 9.7-km-long Kachi Dargah-Bidupur bridge that is now under construction on the Ganga in Bihar and the 9-km-long Bhupen Hazarika bridge on the Brahmaputra that connects Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Source: NDTV
These and other significant initiatives that improve connectivity, alleviate transportation-related traffic issues, boost economic growth and productivity, and raise productivity are prime examples of development through infrastructure construction. The prevailing concept of development centres on the construction of tangible infrastructure.
This path to growth has been followed by the majority of today’s developed nations. India has adopted and put this strategy into practice as well. In addition to bridges, the nation has recently built or renovated roads, railroads, airports, and seaports to improve the flow of people, products, and services as well as to increase income and prosperity for citizens, local communities, and the country as a whole.
Source: Zee Business
Billions of dollars have been invested, and more will follow in the future. It is anticipated to increase investment across a range of industries and establish a positive feedback loop for construction and growth. However, the Atal Setu and other large-scale infrastructure projects have also come under fire for being perceived as symbols of a misguided vision of development that modifies and subjugates nature in addition to exacerbating the climate catastrophe, which now poses a serious threat to human welfare and existence on a global scale. Large-scale infrastructure construction is a holdover from an earlier development vision that turned out to be flawed and unworkable.
With experience, intelligent urban design elsewhere has concentrated in recent years on distancing the ownership and operation of automobiles and other vehicles that not only undermine the goals of infrastructure constructed on any kind of scale, but also release greenhouse gases and worsen climate change.
Large-scale infrastructure projects frequently result in the removal of trees, the deterioration or destruction of wetlands, lakes, rivers, and other natural systems, as well as air and water pollution. Then, it can turn out that the prideful markers of progress have an adverse effect. Now, though, it appears that options are limited. A meeting of the two development visions would be ideal, but it is not simple.
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