| Work Detail |
The passenger train returned to the capital, good news in the context of an indisputable deficit.
Just as Argentina has normalized the crisis, deficit and poverty, the deterioration of routes, roads and bridges, essential for development, is also naturalized. The truth is that during 2023, in terms of infrastructure, Tucumán remained between question marks.
An example: just cross the border with Santiago del Estero to see the contrast. The San Miguel de Tucumán-Las Termas de Río Hondo highway is one of the public works that was most politicized and although the authorities affirm that the certification payments were up to date, there was no clear progress. On the contrary, Santiago del Estero worked on that trace.
Meanwhile, the outlook is bleak in times of chainsaws. President Javier Milei warned that public works can only be carried out through external financing or from international organizations.
What was done?
Little and nothing. A report prepared by the Public Policy Plant (IPEC) shows that between 2016 and 2022, Tucumán was the second province that assigned the least importance to investment in public works and infrastructure. It only surpasses Santa Cruz, the only district with worse statistics. According to that report, the province has allocated 5.7% of its budget to public works. Of that total, typically less than 50% is executed. How much does that amount represent in the budget? How do the other provinces invest? The same report clarifies that in first place is San Luis, which allocated 37% of its budget to public works in the period analyzed. Santiago del Estero follows with 33%, and then come San Juan and Formosa with 20%.
Alejandro Danon is an economist and member of the Public Policy Laboratory for Equitable Development of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the UNT. In an interview with LA GACETA he pointed out that Argentina grew below the Latin American average and that Tucumán has the worst indices in the region.
The specialists updated the Tucumán Growth Diagnostic using a methodology developed by Ricardo Haussman and other authors from the Harvard Kennedy School and were able to identify the reasons why Tucumán is stagnant. The document listed the main restrictions associated with the lack of growth in our country (and the province) and low infrastructure is the section that it places in first place. “Tucumán came to be located in the fourth lowest Gross Geographic Product (GDP) per capita in the country and has the third lowest recorded salary among the 24 subnational jurisdictions,” he points out.
Without so many statistics, the lack of infrastructure is palpable for any Tucuman who circulates through the city or in the interior. Even more so for the producers, who this year complained on numerous occasions because of the precariousness of the road network.
The Association of Agricultural and Livestock Producers of the North (Apronor) exposed it in videos, for which it collected testimonies and documentation on the subject. There they showed everything from fallen bridges to roads in deplorable conditions along routes 321, 327 and 302.
The railway network
Decongesting the routes would be a good alternative if Tucumán had an efficient railway network in operation. But its not like that. Our country once had more than 47,000 kilometers of roads in its heyday; today there are only 4,600 and they are in poor condition. The train is also the cheapest and most efficient means of transportation. Even so, Tucumán fails to optimize it.
DEPLORABLE. It is the state of the road network in the interior of the province.
In 2019, the flooding of the Salí River endangered the structure of the railway bridge that connects Alderetes with San Miguel de Tucumán. To avoid worse damage, the service was suspended in that last section and the outage forced passengers to get on and off the train at Cevil Pozo. Since then, user complaints have been recurring due to the lack of lighting, the poor condition of the station and the unmaintained tracks, which make the trip a 31-hour odyssey.
This year, after much waiting, the repair of the bridge was completed and the people of Tucumán celebrated the return of the convoys to the Miter station, in front of Plaza Alberdi. It is among the few good news in terms of infrastructure.
Talking about water
The provision and management of effluents is another issue that requires a fundamental review. The latest efforts of the Sociedad Aguas de Tucumán (SAT) have been in charge of patching the broken pipes and continuing to resolve the urgent issues, although specialists warn of the need for a detailed diagnosis of the water network. In 2019, the then manager of the SAT, Fernando Baratelli, had pointed out that the service could be cleaned up in five years. He was talking about changing pipes that were up to 100 years old and replacing others that had directly disintegrated.
Time passed and the collapse of the system is even more serious. And whats worse, the deadlines are running out. The new SAT authorities talk about 10 more years. Meanwhile, residents of countless neighborhoods complain every day about the lack of drinking water, sewage leaks or breaks in the network. In all cases they have taken their requests to the company and many times they went to court. |
