Poor performance
This is with reference to the news report ‘Non-revenue water supply stands at over 40%: Govt’ (NT March 13). We have been reading about the 40% water supply revenue loss to the state government due to leakages in ageing pipelines, pilferage and faulty water meters since the past decade or more. Yet precious little has been done by the state government to even reduce the losses to around 10% as promised earlier. That over 70,000 water meters have been found to be faulty is a poor reflection on the maintenance work carried out by the Public Works Department (PWD). Secondly, if 6,000 km of pipeline need to be replaced due to ageing, then why was it not done earlier under the JICA water supply project? Yet, the government keeps promising 24×7 drinking water supply to the state when there is acute water scarcity in several parts of the state, and supply hours are limited to around two in most areas, at low pressure, hardly sufficient to fill up the underground tanks.
A F Nazareth, Alto Porvorim
Life-saver pothole
In a hospital in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, doctors informed a man that his 50-year-old wife was brain dead and nothing could be done to save her. In an incident reminiscent of a scene from a tragic-comedy movie, she came back to life when the ambulance, which was taking her back home, struck a large pothole. After the lady came back to life, the doctors now say that she could have been in coma and not brain dead. Does this indicate medical negligence or a hurried verdict led to her discharge from the hospital? Whatever the reasons, the jolt from the pothole miraculously saved her, as she was destined to live. Incidentally, villagers peeled with bare hands parts of a recently built road in the nearby Pilibhit District! Imagine the state of the roads in some of the states. Are we better off in Goa? People blame the contractors and the governments for the pathetic condition of roads, especially those that are riddled with craters and potholes. For once, a pothole helped to save a life. But this should not make those responsible for laying roads complacent and justify the presence of unmotorable roads as an alternative and miraculous therapy to bring back people to life.
Sridhar D Iyer, Caranzalem
LPG supply
What is the difference between a token system and home delivery of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders? A token system for LPG cylinders has been introduced in Calangute due to a severe supply shortage, causing panic, long queues and fears of hoarding. In order to streamline distribution, 300 cylinders are issued daily via direct receipt at booking points, replacing home delivery with mandatory self-collection from godown at 2 pm. What logic is this and what is the difference between a token system and home delivery of the gas cylinders? Why has the home delivery of the gas cylinders been stopped? Booking a cylinder on mobile phone and the subsequent home delivery of the cylinder involved the same process. If there was any threat to the gas cylinder vehicle or any chances of black marketeering, one armed police personnel should have been deployed in the gas cylinder distributing vehicle. Home delivery of LPG cylinder should restart at the earliest.
Smita Satardekar, Nerul
Art of war
Many questions arise as to why the US aircraft carriers are incapable of escorting ships out of the Strait of Hormuz? If the carriers enter the Strait, they become sitting ducks. The jets that they carry have to fly at much slower speeds than what they have been designed for, consequently they lose tactical advantage. If they are escorting a slow moving ship, they will have to fly in a low-altitude formation that gives cover to the ship till it moves out of the arc of danger. The low altitude itself makes the war planes easy targets for shore-based missiles. If the carriers use attack helicopters (which operate at one tenth the speed of jets) for the same purpose, then those choppers too become cannon fodder for Iranian munitions, a missile magnet of sorts. If the aircraft carrier is sunk by enemy fire, 5,000 sailors will find a watery grave, arguably the single biggest loss of life at sea. Americans, especially the MAGA crowd, will not spare President Donald Trump if that happens. What an irony, the world’s most powerful flotilla is sitting impotent on the high seas. There is an existential lesson for everyone in this. Investing in an aircraft carrier (each costs $13 billion) is money down the drain. The world has moved on to uncounterable hypersonic missiles capable of Mach 16 speeds and high precision lethal drones delivering death literally at your doorstep. Warfare is more ‘guerrilla’ now, heavily asymmetric; maybe Sun Tzu shall have to write a sequel to the ‘Art of War’.
Vinay Dwivedi, Benaulim
