Looking after it

Look around: schools, colleges, hospitals, health centres, police stations, fire stations, courts, parks, libraries, community centres. This is social infrastructure. Physical infrastructure moves things; social infrastructure serves people.

India has built major physical infrastructure — airports, highways and more — but challenges remain. We still see litter on roads, stains on buildings, and people writing on monuments.

Damaging public infrastructure makes life harder for everyone, and someone has to pay to clean or repair it — and that someone is every citizen. Looking after public infrastructure is a shared responsibility.

Panchayats and municipalities also need to improve services like waste management, sewers, traffic management, clean drinking water and safe footpaths for walkers.

We need infrastructure that is safe and sustainable: using clean energy and eco-friendly materials to cut pollution and protect wildlife — for example, solar panels to power buildings, or alarm systems to warn animals crossing railway tracks. Designs should also meet the needs of children, the elderly and disabled people.

None of this is new. Kauṭilya's Arthaśhāstra says the state, villages (grāma) and assemblies (sabhās) all helped build and maintain roads and waterways, with detailed rules for roads of different widths depending on the traffic.

For example, royal highways, country roads, roads to ports and roads to villages were to be 16 m wide; forest roads and city roads 8 m; and chariot roads 2.5 m. Different widths for different traffic — the same thinking as local roads, state highways and expressways today.

The Arthaśhāstra also set punishments and fines for damaging public works: a severe penalty for breaking a reservoir's dam, and fines for breaking hedges to enter public parks or blocking paths to waterworks and forests. Today too, the government can fine people who damage infrastructure, but citizens matter just as much: use it responsibly, and report damage like potholes or broken streetlights to the authorities.