Forget Mumbai

“It was the Urbs Prima in Indis but it is now at best an imperfect city,” says the Mumbai Human Development Report-2009 about the city.

The report, copyrighted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and developed with the United Nations Development Programme, India, indicates that the solution to decongesting Mumbai is to make it less attractive to migrants.

Currently, the report says, the city continues to draw the migrant who becomes the urban poor in most cases. He moves to Mumbai, not knowing that there is a human development index; his aspiration itself is a big indicator of his search for improving his life’s chances.

To reverse the trend, it is necessary to add sheen to the rest of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) — which includes the areas beyond Borivli up to Virar, beyond Mankhurd up to Panvel-Alibaug-Uran and beyond Mulund up to Karjat. The rest of the MMR is nine times larger than Mumbai, and houses only half of the city’s population. It is also relatively underdeveloped as most jobs are based in the city.

“Contemporary Mumbai continues to be a powerful magnet for capital investment, non-polluting production activities and opportunities for work and living with higher levels of consumption, though increasingly for a narrower section of the population,” the report states. “The disincentives have to be such that the lure of Mumbai should diminish and provide counter-magnets which provide increased pulls.”

It suggests a churn in policy that would enable the neighbouring regions, which have absorbed most new migrants, to provide sufficiently rewarding livelihood. “It cannot be that they cast their populations’ weight on Mumbai every day,” the report says.

Suggesting that “inter-linking the other cities north of Mumbai with each other, and developing economic activity there, is the path to tread,” the report says that if not decongesting Mumbai, the move will “prevent increased burden on a city about to collapse”.

Mumbai’s problem lie in the asymmetry within the city with nearly 54% of the population living in hellish conditions in slums concentrated on just 6% of its land. The slum residents, however, are a major factor in sustaining the economy, especially the service sector.

 “Without economic activity of their own, ignoring the social capital, these cities (the rest of MMR) may slide into unforeseen problems. Economic activity with participation of those residing there provides a bonding that is significant to a place’s growth in other dimensions - social included,” says the report.

Encouraging this vigorously with huge investments to seed the initial but robust activity in these satellite cities would be of enormous benefit to Mumbai.