Closed for Maintenance

In Sikkim, infrastructure often appears to have a short life cycle. A road is repaired, a drain constructed, a building inaugurated and a public facility opened with much attention. But the real test begins after the inauguration, and that is where our approach to infrastructure often falls short.

We have become better at building than maintaining.

For a mountain state, this is a costly weakness. Heavy rain, landslides, seepage and unstable terrain naturally take a toll on roads, retaining walls, drains, bridges and buildings. But natural conditions cannot become an excuse for neglect. They make regular maintenance even more important.

A blocked drain can damage a road. A small crack in a retaining wall can become a serious hazard. A neglected pothole can worsen with every spell of rain. Yet preventive maintenance often receives attention only after deterioration becomes too visible to ignore.

This is also poor economics. Timely maintenance costs considerably less than replacing or extensively repairing infrastructure that has been allowed to deteriorate. Every public asset should therefore have a maintenance schedule, a designated agency responsible for its upkeep and a budget that extends beyond its construction.

The emphasis on new projects is understandable. New infrastructure is visible and politically attractive. Maintenance, by contrast, rarely makes headlines. But good governance is not simply about creating new assets. It is about ensuring that existing ones remain safe, functional and useful.

Citizens experience development through the road they travel, the drain outside their homes, the streetlight that works and the public building that remains usable years after it was inaugurated.

Sikkim does not necessarily need to build more. It needs to preserve what it has built. The culture of inauguration must eventually give way to a culture of upkeep. Because the true measure of infrastructure is not how grandly it begins, but how reliably it serves people over time.