Column

BMC must team up with people to restore decency, law on roads.

That Mumbaikars are resilient is a celebrated cliché. Another trait of the great city’s people that is acknowledged only in drunken confessions: lawlessness! It is gratuitous, it is impudent, and it is chronic. How many times have you jumped a signal because no one was looking? I suppose as many times as you have cursed that ‘uncouth jerk, possibly from Delhi, with zero respect for traffic laws’ who made you cower to halt an intersection though the signal suggested that you had the right of way.

Then there are the taxi fellows who, on no legal authority, refuse to accept your custom. I think there is no use recommending self-correction. So I am going to think aloud about some ways in which the citizenry and civic authorities can collaborate on making our streets fit for humans and other common animals.

Problem: Auto/taxi drivers don’t like where you’re going:
Solution: If you want to lodge a complaint against the horrible driver, you should be allowed to file it, then and there, through SMS. The message, outlining details such as the licence number of the vehicle and the date and time will be relayed to a central console. The traffic department should assess the data once a week and identify repeat offenders and pass the information to the RTO office. The habitual non-driver is summoned and reprimanded.

Problem: Mumbaikars have no driving sense:
Solution: Those jumping signals or committing other traffic offences are of course often caught and made to pay. But the punishment does not seem to be enough of a deterrence. I suggest that the offenders’ details be sent to the main traffic commissionarate and then be shared with insurance companies. The insurer should then send an SMS to the driver, warning that the next offence would make him or her liable to pay a higher premium the next year. This system will obviously depend on a collaboration between the authorities and the insurers. The authorities will not mind some penal outsourcing, and would not the insurers be delighted? Think about AIG!

Problem: No place for Mumbaikars to walk:
Solution: Set aside a 500 metre zone surrounding a metro station for pedestrian only space. Do we really need so many vada-pav vendors, or wallet-sellers around a station?

Problem: Hazy data, opaque accountability
Solution: The government must declare the expenditure of the civic body in the form of outcomes and not in the form of cost. For instance, saying that Andheri water project will get Rs250 crore this year is meaningless. The civic body must qualify the outcome in specific terms: 2500 people will get water connection Saki Naka, for example.
raghu@dnaindia.net