Why wait for adverse event to act against illegalities?

The demolition drive was conducted on Monday. Pic/CMO

A massive demolition drive was carried out in the Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation area recently after Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde ordered action against illegal resorts near Arnala beach following a Shiv Sena (UBT) leader's son's death.

Milind More, the son of the undivided Shiv Sena's former Thane district chief Raghunath More and a former deputy city chief and transport committee member, passed away while visiting a resort near Arnala beach with his family when a dispute with residents escalated into an attack.

The 45-year-old deceased was having an argument with an autorickshaw driver when tragedy struck. After collapsing to the ground, he was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

While a death allegedly triggered by something like this is a huge tragedy, one has to question why we always need an adverse event to take action against illegalities.

The aftermath of the incident raises several questions: If there were illegal resorts, why were they allowed to come up in the first place?

With whose connivance had they come up? For how many years had they been operating for and would they still be flourishing if this had not happened? Does it take a death in a political leader's family to ensure that some errant resorts are removed? Are the papers of these resorts not checked any which way? Why do we need the chief minister to order that action be taken and what were the local authorities doing all this while?

These questions show us that we need to change a familiar pattern of waking up only after a disaster or accident and taking remedial action only after some kind of
adverse event.