Email
Print
Sharesections which believe in whipping up a storm over names.
Some commentators have sought to quell the euphoria occasioned by the opening of the 5.6 km long bridge by pointing out that it took almost a decade to complete the project. The 'engineering marvel' was indeed a wonder of tardy progress compared to several comparable bridges in other parts of the world. For example, the sea bridge between Denmark and Sweden, which is longer than our marvel, at 7.7 km, was built in only four years.
At any rate, the euphoria seems to have been stifled, anyway. And nothing can cramp euphoria, and patience, better than an old-fashioned traffic jam. According to estimates of experts, the bridge cannot handle more than 3,000 cars per hour, when it was touted to give express passage to 4,400 cars per hour.
I am, however, not excited by trivia spanning the bridge. What concerns me most is that the expensive congeries of cables, steel, and cement -- assembled with the help of taxpayers' money -- are going to cost me Rs50 per trip. That brings me to another first that the Bandra-Worli sea link has welded to its name: it is the first toll-extracting structure for commuters travelling within the city.
The government seems blasé about imposing a toll on use of the sea link because it reckons that the bridge is a wee bit better than the other road-network facilities of Mumbai. That extraordinary expedient of making us pay for moderately decent services and amenities has been accepted by us for long. For example, few of us would want to send our children to municipal schools. Since the government's school system is an unmitigated failure, private schools have thrived.
Also consider the condition of electric supply in our city. After the privatisation of the distribution system, a modicum of efficiency courses through the service. Yet thousands of Mumbaikars have complaints, not only about the supply, but also about tariffs. That was the price Mumbai had to pay for wanting a piffling little quality enhancement in the critical utility. The government could not respond, so it simply withdrew. The model the government is following in case of the sea link seems consistent with its approach to its fundamental civic responsibilities: You want better, then pay up.So for me, it is elementally disturbing that the Bandra-Worli sea link augurs the emergence of a totally privatised metro. We, the hapless taxpayers, have to pay for everything, be it water, power, garbage disposal. The only happy exception was the road. Until now, that is. With the sea link making road service chargeable, we have been stripped of that small mercy as well.
As a parting suggestion, may I say that the tax system be done away with altogether? Let's have a system instead where we pay for every service. Say, for registering an FIR, the cops charge us a fee. That way, we will have the satisfaction of getting services for every
payment made! What say?
