Why India’s Infrastructure Is Breaking Before It’s Even Finished

India’s infrastructure story, once a tale of ambition and acceleration, is now marred by collapses—literal and institutional. From the silencing of critics by the provision of smooth multilane highways and award-winning airport terminals in the early 2000s, we have now arrived at a point where headlines routinely scream of avoidable disasters: the Morbi bridge collapse, the cracks in the Mumbai Coastal Road, submerged tunnels in Silkyara, or crumbling expressways barely out of their ribbon-cutting ceremonies. 

Each episode is followed by silence: no naming, no accountability, no fixing of responsibility. And it’s not for want of resources. There are effective frameworks for this: InvITs, REITs, Municipal Bonds, an Infrastructure Credit rating scale, Public Private Partnerships, the India Infrastructure Finance Corporation, et al — the list is long. 

As far as we know, there has been no change in the method of awarding and executing project contracts, nor has there been a curtailment of funds. Why, then, has everything gone so horribly wrong? And why don’t we see any follow-up reports on who has been found culpable? How the failure occurred? What penal action has been taken, and, most importantly, how systems have been improved to prevent such errors? We appear to be building fast, but building really badly. 

Speed Kills 
The turbocharged infrastructure delivery system we expected seems to have been completely derailed, with announcements showcasing quantity rather than quality. And this extends to even projects built by the country’s best construction companies, though they are simultaneously executing superior projects abroad.

The push for quick completion, often for political or electoral reasons, can lead to shortcuts in material quality checks, design, and construction practices, with rushed inauguration, premature failures, and endless repair cycles, accompanied by extremely rare pinpointing of contractor accountability, and poor contract enforcement.

We also have fragmented oversight standards. Over 17 agencies, such as NHAI, Railways and PWD, follow different standards for their sectors. Further, unlike in China, Indian contractors typically face no liability consequences one or two years after project completion, including in some PPP projects, where liability was once required over the entire concession period. We also have the ‘political-speed-over-safety’ approach. In 2023, 10 bridges collapsed in Bihar as they had rushed monsoon deadlines. Moreover, the average time taken for resolution of infrastructure cases is eight years, with low conviction rates for technical failures.

Leaving aside increasing reports of corruption, the three primary sets of reasons that emerge from an analysis of recent cases are:

1. Temporal Pressures (often political cycle-driven completion deadlines):

• Compressed project timelines averaging 28% shorter than international benchmarks (World Bank, 2023)
• Consequent reduction in quality assurance processes

2. Accountability Deficits

• Limited liability windows (typically 1-2 years post-completion)
• Frequent corporate restructuring by contractors to avoid liability and/or blacklisting
• Weak enforcement of existing standards & quality clauses in contracts

3. Maintenance Neglect

• Only 0.3% of GDP allocated to maintenance (vs. 1.2% in OECD nations)
• Reactive rather than preventive maintenance

Can this be fixed? Institutional change can happen, but only if political and bureaucratic will align. Let’s set aside corruption for a moment. Unless jail terms are awarded for fatal negligence or fraud, like in China’s 2019 sentencing of corrupt infrastructure inspectors, no amount of regulation can deter malpractice. There are lessons to be learnt from how other countries have tackled this.

Borrowed Lessons
After facing a spate of failures in the 2010s, China passed its Infrastructure Quality Act (2019). It mandates lifetime liability for contractors and engineers, enforces digital tracking of construction data, and imposes stiff penalties, including imprisonment. Results: a 30% drop in safety incidents and adherence to global standards on large projects such as the Beijing Daxing Airport. Implementation, however, remains patchy in rural areas, and corruption persists at local levels. 

Brazil’s 2019 Anti-Corruption in Public Works Act followed the $2 billion Petrobras scandal. It requires ISO 37001 (anti-bribery management systems) compliance for contractors and incentivises whistleblowers with a cut of recovered funds. While over 200 firms were blacklisted, weak state-level enforcement has dulled the law’s impact, and is dogged by under-funding. 

After a destructive earthquake in Turkey exposed structural failings in buildings, the government repealed its 2018 Construction Amnesty Law and initiated retroactive audits. By 2023, over three million buildings were inspected and 1,200 engineers jailed, though only 40% of the violations were rectified, allegedly due to enforcement gaps.

In the US, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act mandated asset management plans for all states to prevent degradation. The impact was seen as over 47,000 bridges are now rated "in good condition,” a 12% increase from 2021.

Can India adopt a similar reform pathway? 

Can we fast-track judicial decisions so that the average case time is not more than six months (oh, for special infrastructure fraud courts!)? Could we start an ‘Anti-Rebranding Registry’ with a central database of all contractors’ past projects? And crowdsource defect reports through citizen tech tools? And can we allow piercing of the corporate veil in a targeted, surgical way for cases of fraud, shell companies, or lethal negligence?

Most of all, is it time to consider an Indian Infrastructure Quality Act, which cherry-picks the best features of various applicable laws, like RERA’s transparency, China’s liability clauses, and Japan’s tech-driven audits, to bring in a semblance of accountability and enforce quality standards? It could mirror RERA’s escrow rules, holding funds accountable without scaring off investors. Simultaneously, the 2016 National Infrastructure Pipeline could be amended to include mandatory quality reserves for each project. This would address both execution quality and related financial risks.

Some ideas worth considering:

• Legal: An Infrastructure Quality Act or, alternatively, mandate 10-year liability clauses for contractors in critical projects.
• AI & Tech: Adopt the latest tools for monitoring. Have virtual replicas for monitoring, the “Digital Twin” approach, and scale up the use of blockchain tenders to curb corruption. Andhra Pradesh had tried this first, in 2019.
• Institutional: Establish a National Infrastructure Audit Agency, independent of ministries, which can also assist states in auditing the physical condition of their infrastructure assets. Also, use tech tools: Citizen Reporting/Whistleblower apps, like the UK’s “FixMyRoad”, can be quite effective.
• Mandate "Maintenance First" budgets, say 2% of project cost, like in Japan.
• For all large projects, adopt QCBS procurement so that shoddy, least-cost bids do not undermine quality standards.

But the harsh reality is that without strict enforcement, even the toughest law will be ineffective. The bigger challenge is not creating rules; it’s ensuring they are not routinely ignored. Real resistance will come from contractor lobbies, as they profit from rebuild contracts, for example, Mumbai’s pothole repair mafia, from states in the federal structure as they oppose central oversight (Telangana’s Medigadda Barrage spat), and the ultimate reality check, the delays in contract enforcement and judicial decisions (the 2012 Delhi Metro pillar collapse took near nine years for convictions).

Finally, data must drive reform. India needs studies on the cost-benefit analysis of extended liability regimes, on comparative federalism challenges in infrastructure governance, and on the efficacy of digital monitoring systems in developing economies. Once we start thinking along these lines, better answers and outcomes will follow.