Focus needs to shift from Mumbai to MMR

We need to shift focus from Mumbai to its extended city region — the MMR, which is crying for attention. It seems planners are content with keeping Mumbai alive and letting satellite cities suckle at its breast.

If the MMR is expected to reach the levels projected, it would fall short everywhere — infrastructure, governance and pace of progress.

Currently, investment in Mumbai’s backlogs is the priority while investing in the future of MMR is the need. If Mumbai’s 60% population lives in slums, the MMR’s proportion is 38%.

No lessons have been learnt from the mother city to arrest slum proliferation even in locations distant from Mumbai, which drags down human development indices.

The city region can meet challenges listed in the McKinsey report only by reinventing itself to acquire speed in decision-making, implementation and also quality, which is now missing.

For a start, I would like to see a council of mayors of all cities in the region, corporations and councils, to be a formal planning body and not just the MMRDA.

Also, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will have to go for a tectonic shift and share its revenues to stimulate the economies of smaller towns around the city.

That would mean the pressure on Mumbai will cease and its linear nature will be neutralised. That’s the only way to come out of the pressure cooker it is currently in.

The writer is the consulting editor of the Mumbai Human Development Report 2009