Pollution, encroachments, traffic congestion, unplanned urbanization - that’s amchi Mumbai. Let me ask my readers a very simple question. Can Mumbai be Shanghai? Mumbai has always been compared to other cities in the past. As it is a financial city of India, the city developers need to come out with a better plan to redevelop it into a good city where people can do business as well as reside. But, do we need comparison for that. Why do people compare? They may compare to set a benchmark or a target. If someone has achieved it then, why not us, is the first thought. The other reason may be to not repeat the mistakes that others had faced while achieving those set targets or benchmark.
So, what are the hurdles before Mumbai to be a Shanghai like city? The most important is that India is a democratic country unlike China where even the press is not free to express their views. When India is faced with a problem, our media tries to make aware of the situation not only to our people but also to the whole world. But, Chinese response is to problems is to hide them. SARS and bird flu epidemics are examples. The second is the objective. The object of economic development should be welfare of the people. It shouldn’t be to just build nice looking infrastructure for showing to foreigners.
There are many other issues which need to be taken care of before taking any steps as many previous steps had been a failure. Let us try to examine the Mumbai city. Mumbai is home to more than 15 million people and also to Asia’s largest slum. The city had been ever expanding with no concept of development. So, a few years ago when the government in Maharashtra realised that the Mumbai city is on the brink of collapse it asked McKinsey & Co. to come out with their studies on how to develop Mumbai into a world class city. Then, a year later Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, too echoed that Mumbai should be developed into a better city.
The report had set the estimated cost to be around Rs.2, 00,000 crores. The report focuses on six key areas- economic growth, transportation, housing, other infrastructure, financing and governance. Each area is crucial and also linked with each other area.
Transport and housing are the two crucial areas in terms of transforming the city. Except for railways, transport system is shaky. Railways are the lifeline of Mumbai. The civic authorities had never paid attention towards other transportation. So, when you can travel to a place say in half an hour by a train, the same distance by a bus will take about more than an hour. The traffic on roads is terrifying. Same is the situation in trains in terms of crowd. If we look at New Delhi, there the developers already had a plan for the next ten years and they started building not only metro but also many number of flyovers to ease traffic. At the same time it also widened the road to smoothen the traffic. But, Mumbai waked up late. The city needs mass rapid transport system like metro and many numbers of flyovers and broader roads. By the time metro will be ready, population in Mumbai would have exploded. Roads are hardly expanded. They are just rebuilt with path holes everywhere.
Housing is a problem in Mumbai. There had been many causes of building collapsing. There are many old buildings that either need to be repaired or need to be demolished. But, the corrupt civic authorities let these buildings be there to cause casualties in future. Mumbai is a city of slums. More than half of the city lives in slums. One can find slums at every corner of the city. These slum dwellers have been coddled by political parties because they are a rich source of votes. So, developing these sites become extremely difficult. Everywhere one can find illegal construction and encroachments. The settlement and rehabilitation of such families is a Herculean task as land availability is a problem in Mumbai. The bottom line is that urban planning decisions are not driven by city planners but the builders and developers for profits. Therefore, the cost of doing business in Mumbai is just too high because of extortionist land prices and a deteriorating and over-stretched infrastructure.
Then there is a problem of floods in Mumbai. A mild shower and we hear news of water logging. Drainage system needs a special maintenance. Most of the water logging is due to clog drainage.
The McKinsey report had also suggested a corporate like pattern of government with a CEO and a centralized decision-making structure. Presently, this city is divided between the desires of the State Government and the Municipal Corporation. Each of them has different politics and compulsions. Apart from those two, there is a municipality of authorities in the form of other autonomous bodies such as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).
If we look at corporate governance, it resolves around boards that are accountable to shareholders. Their executives do not have permanent tenure and they are judged by their performance. But, in the government it is reverse. They have a permanent structure of the bureaucracy whose performance does not count and impermanent structure of politicians where consistency does not count. This has resulted in a situation where anything like long-term plan for a city like Mumbai is simply a pipedream as the people who are asked to make decisions worry about the next elections and the people who are assigned the task of implementing any plan await the will of their impermanent bosses. So, there is no way to transform this system of governance.
Financing is not an issue today. The problem is proper planning and implementation. But funds alone can’t do any thing. Mumbai can’t take any more population. Migration of people from other states needs to be checked. This can be done only when the government makes equal efforts to transform other cities also into a world class city. I don’t think we are doing that. Ultimately, after a few years we will see people traveling in metro and mono rails as we them traveling today in local trains. If anyone thinks that this will reduce the burden on other transportation then, they are day dreaming. Mumbai need wider roads but no civic authority has ever thought to expand the roads as these will require demolishing road side structures (their other source of pay). It needs more gardens for people to relax and breathe easy. But lack of space is a constraint. It needs more hospitals but we often hear that patients have been turned off due to unavailability of beds. There are more cars and lesser parking space. The problems are countless.
I am not saying that these cannot be solved. But, by the time they are a new set of problems will be ahead of us to solve. The solution lies not in solving the problems but finding the root cause and treating it. We need to have a long term vision.
So, what are the hurdles before Mumbai to be a Shanghai like city? The most important is that India is a democratic country unlike China where even the press is not free to express their views. When India is faced with a problem, our media tries to make aware of the situation not only to our people but also to the whole world. But, Chinese response is to problems is to hide them. SARS and bird flu epidemics are examples. The second is the objective. The object of economic development should be welfare of the people. It shouldn’t be to just build nice looking infrastructure for showing to foreigners.
There are many other issues which need to be taken care of before taking any steps as many previous steps had been a failure. Let us try to examine the Mumbai city. Mumbai is home to more than 15 million people and also to Asia’s largest slum. The city had been ever expanding with no concept of development. So, a few years ago when the government in Maharashtra realised that the Mumbai city is on the brink of collapse it asked McKinsey & Co. to come out with their studies on how to develop Mumbai into a world class city. Then, a year later Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, too echoed that Mumbai should be developed into a better city.
The report had set the estimated cost to be around Rs.2, 00,000 crores. The report focuses on six key areas- economic growth, transportation, housing, other infrastructure, financing and governance. Each area is crucial and also linked with each other area.
Transport and housing are the two crucial areas in terms of transforming the city. Except for railways, transport system is shaky. Railways are the lifeline of Mumbai. The civic authorities had never paid attention towards other transportation. So, when you can travel to a place say in half an hour by a train, the same distance by a bus will take about more than an hour. The traffic on roads is terrifying. Same is the situation in trains in terms of crowd. If we look at New Delhi, there the developers already had a plan for the next ten years and they started building not only metro but also many number of flyovers to ease traffic. At the same time it also widened the road to smoothen the traffic. But, Mumbai waked up late. The city needs mass rapid transport system like metro and many numbers of flyovers and broader roads. By the time metro will be ready, population in Mumbai would have exploded. Roads are hardly expanded. They are just rebuilt with path holes everywhere.
Housing is a problem in Mumbai. There had been many causes of building collapsing. There are many old buildings that either need to be repaired or need to be demolished. But, the corrupt civic authorities let these buildings be there to cause casualties in future. Mumbai is a city of slums. More than half of the city lives in slums. One can find slums at every corner of the city. These slum dwellers have been coddled by political parties because they are a rich source of votes. So, developing these sites become extremely difficult. Everywhere one can find illegal construction and encroachments. The settlement and rehabilitation of such families is a Herculean task as land availability is a problem in Mumbai. The bottom line is that urban planning decisions are not driven by city planners but the builders and developers for profits. Therefore, the cost of doing business in Mumbai is just too high because of extortionist land prices and a deteriorating and over-stretched infrastructure.
Then there is a problem of floods in Mumbai. A mild shower and we hear news of water logging. Drainage system needs a special maintenance. Most of the water logging is due to clog drainage.
The McKinsey report had also suggested a corporate like pattern of government with a CEO and a centralized decision-making structure. Presently, this city is divided between the desires of the State Government and the Municipal Corporation. Each of them has different politics and compulsions. Apart from those two, there is a municipality of authorities in the form of other autonomous bodies such as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).
If we look at corporate governance, it resolves around boards that are accountable to shareholders. Their executives do not have permanent tenure and they are judged by their performance. But, in the government it is reverse. They have a permanent structure of the bureaucracy whose performance does not count and impermanent structure of politicians where consistency does not count. This has resulted in a situation where anything like long-term plan for a city like Mumbai is simply a pipedream as the people who are asked to make decisions worry about the next elections and the people who are assigned the task of implementing any plan await the will of their impermanent bosses. So, there is no way to transform this system of governance.
Financing is not an issue today. The problem is proper planning and implementation. But funds alone can’t do any thing. Mumbai can’t take any more population. Migration of people from other states needs to be checked. This can be done only when the government makes equal efforts to transform other cities also into a world class city. I don’t think we are doing that. Ultimately, after a few years we will see people traveling in metro and mono rails as we them traveling today in local trains. If anyone thinks that this will reduce the burden on other transportation then, they are day dreaming. Mumbai need wider roads but no civic authority has ever thought to expand the roads as these will require demolishing road side structures (their other source of pay). It needs more gardens for people to relax and breathe easy. But lack of space is a constraint. It needs more hospitals but we often hear that patients have been turned off due to unavailability of beds. There are more cars and lesser parking space. The problems are countless.
I am not saying that these cannot be solved. But, by the time they are a new set of problems will be ahead of us to solve. The solution lies not in solving the problems but finding the root cause and treating it. We need to have a long term vision.
Hi Sanjay,
ReplyDeleteWe are democratic and chinese are not, so decision making will obviously be slow in India not only because we have to take people into confidence but also because babus deliberately delay the execution of projects for their personal and political reasons.
As long as politiians have narrow objectives, India will not be able to reap the benefits of a democratic society while china walks away being Communist.
Today we can only survive if we are ahead of the curve and Chinese are indeed ahead while India is behind the curve. Atleast i don't see our leadership is thinking ahead and are proactive in handling issues before they take gigantic proportions.
Case in point where our politicians were sleeping are
1) Infrastructure planning should have been undertaken long time ago.
2) Moving away from paper based system in government departments to computer based system should already be underway and i don't see that happening.
3) Islmaic terrorism was underway for a long time now. India should have been ready for this by now in handling it. I am afraid, we are not even doing it now.
--sri
note: Please submit your blog to enewss.com
Hi meltyourfat,
ReplyDeleteYou are right that India being a democratic country can't take quick decisions as they have to consider their people (read votes). But, as far as decision making is concerned there had been many instances where politicians don't even bother to consider the masses.
Also, I don't think that we should compete with Chinese. Comparing with them is different but competing is no. They are communist who don't even bother to give freedom to their people. there are lot of restrictions, like press is not given a free hand and so on. I do not want India to be like that. But, yes on infrastructure front we can take some lessons from them and take some hard decisions to make our city more beautiful.
As far as computers are concerned, though at a snail's pace but there are lot of happenings in the government offices. Everything is being changed though at a lesser pace.
Islamic terrorism is a big threat to India and I feel its very difficult to control now. As you have said India should have been ready by now. but as we know India is a democratic country and there are many politicians who are there just to print money. so these politicians are not bothered whether people are killed or murdered by these terrorists. they just know one thing; that is how to make sure that he wins their votes.
It's a good article. And i would like to give some comments to make this article and the discussion followed more realistic.
ReplyDelete1. Democracy does not only mean the right to speak, but also mean the right to eat and survive. In this sense, india and china are both non-demacratic countries. While chinese cannot vote the president, many indias cannot even feed their stomach, or get educated.
2.Free press. In india, the press is controled by the rich people who own the press; in china, the press is controlled by the state. So there both countries have no free press.
3. Commnunist. Many people call china as commnunist country. But many people find that when they go to china they can find anything but commnunist.
4. Future of the two countries. The world is flattening rapidly. There are more and more things that only western people can do but others cannot do. So in the end the western will finally lose their present advantage in science, techonology, and economy. Both india and china would be the most dominant superpower in the future. The process to reach this stage may take more than 100 years. However, this process is inevitable and no one can change it.