Cry, My Beloved Mumbai, not for the ravaging floods as they are annual regular visitors to our city, but for the ravaging troika of politicians, builders and bureaucrats who made it possible.
Politicians of all hues want to make money for themselves and their parties, Mumbai be damned. The builders want to make quick-money without wasting even an inch of space for drainage and things like that, ecology be damned. Bureaucrats want to ensure their promotions (and also make some money on the side), by bending, if not breaking, rules and regulations to ensure safe passage for the politicians and the builders. Rules and regulations, like promises made by politicians, are made only to be broken.
A former Municipal Commissioner had once said, politicians used to make 5 percent on all contracts earlier, which became 15 percent at a later stage. A report on Thane Municipal Corporation a few years ago had revealed that about 35 percent had to be shelled out to politicians and bureaucrats. How can such municipal works stand the floods ?
This ravaging troika had the run of Mumbai for years, thanks to gullible voters who elect people of their caste, religion or region, not for development. So, who dumped Mumbai in floods ? The troika plus the voters.
We cannot forget the contribution made by another section of Mumbai, the trade unions. It is reported that 70 percent of the revenue of the city goes towards the pay and other perquisites of the municipal staff. What does the city and its citizens get in return ? Poor collection of garbage, choked drains and absenteeism. When you go to the ward office, there is nobody to register your grievances, leave alone redressing them. On top of that, they would go on strike when the city is vulnerable – during the monsoon for bonus when there is no surplus in the city coffers.
Mumbai could still be saved if people are awakened. If these floods could not do it, nothing else would. Now is the time for all enlightened people of Mumbai to come together and chalk out a plan for its development.
There cannot be an island of prosperity in the midst of floods. People of Malabar Hill and Pali Hill might have beeen saved from the floods, not from the lack of milk, vegetables and other everyday needs. They never had to suffer much earlier and may not be now as well. They cannot sit in their ivory tower for ever. Sooner they get rid of 'us' and 'them' syndrome, better for all. Let them take notice: If Mumbai falls, all fall down.
And one more thing : Let Mumbai be Mumbai and it does not need any model, Singapore or Shanghai, both dictatorial regimes. Mumbai needs a vision where everybody counts and where everybody has a place.
A report states that no women were harassed and many people came forward to help the stranded passengers in buses with biscuits and other eatables. An auto-rikshaw driver took care of his passengers in his house. There are many other tales of valour and civility which should give us hope for the future. Yahi hai Mumbai meri jan !
JRD and other industrialists had a Bombay Plan for India. Let today's young industrialists (including film stars, bankers, and others) should ask themselves 'What they have done for Mumbai ?' They can come together and prepare a Mumbai Development Plan, not a grandiose one but one that gives better civic conditions for its people. 'Keep to knitting', to use the management jargon. Where there are no new ideas, new vision, people perish either in corruption or floods or both.
There should be an election immediately for Mumbai Municipal Corporation where the only issue should be what each party is going to do for Mumbai's development and nothing else. Let every party come with its own blueprint after consulting the town-planners, ecologists and the common people – drainage, sewerage, water supply, electricity, and roadways etc.
It is a shame that 60 percent of the people in Mumbai live in slums, not because of the construction cost but because of land cost. It is possible to build houses for the poor people, ask Singapore. A Dutch construction company told me that it could construct two flats per day with its 'in-situ' construction machinery.
The rationale of any institution is its services. Municipal Corporations are mainly to provide sanitation, water supply, infrastructure such as roadways and electricity, elementary education etc. If the present dispensation does not serve these needs, we have to change the system. Privatisation of some of the services could be tried in some of these services as in many other municipal corporations all over the world.
There is an urgent need to rationalize the staff of the Municipal Corporation. The surplus staff should be retired with generous compensation and if willing, trained in other skills to get a job. They also should be encouraged to go back to their villages to start a new life and regenerate the villages.
Mumbai needs be de-congested and decentralized to be saved. Let there be many satellite towns. Let all the wholesale markets be shifted to Navi Mumbai. The daily commuting by millions in north/south direction in the morning and in the reverse direction in the evening can be reduced by shifting all the major government and private sector offices to the suburbs or to Navi Mumbai.
Having all the jobs in the Fort Area does not add to efficiency at all. With the telecommunication revolution (mobile, computer, internet etc) the whole world is a village now and it does not matter where the office is located. The government can give tax concessions to shift to suburbs.
Building a Third Mumbai on the mainland would not only de-congest Mumbai, it would develop the mainland. This new city planned in every detail could be the 21st Century Mumbai. It should be a self-contained city where people live and work, not commute to work. There could be a Banking District, where all major banks can have offices or head-offices, which can become a major financial center like Hong Kong, Singapore or London. There could be a Hi-tech District where technology industry could be located. There could be a Biotech District.
All the MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Area ) should be one Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation(GMMC). Each business district should have an elected small assembly with a mayor. GMMC should be a federation with these mayors as the members who can elect a Chairman. All the development projects have to be prepared by an expert committee and monitored by a voters' committee
The final question arises. How to fund these developments? Huge Dalton, economist and former Chancellor of Exchequer in the Atlee government in UK, had given an answer long ago. Problem of public finance is not of raising money but of spending it. If the money is well spent, raising funds is not going to be a problem at all. (August 1,2005).
