Comment

Vilasrao Deshmukh keeps talking about making Mumbai into Shanghai. Wrong city, Mr Chief Minister. It is Singapore we should be using as a model.

Singapore and Mumbai are similar in many ways. Both are small bits of land jutting into the sea. Both are ruled by democratically elected governments. Both have immense ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. These are not characteristics found in Shanghai.

There are also important dissimilarities between Mumbai and Singapore. We are at different levels of development, Mumbai’s population is three times Singapore’s and, most important, the latter is a city state with a government that can be far more city-centric and sharply focused than Maharashtra’s.

Even so, it’s fascinating to see the way Singapore has solved problems common to Mumbai. Its population consists of Chinese, Malays, Indians and other races practicing Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, yet their integration seems seamless and harmonious.

This is not necessarily a by-product of development, else we would have no racial friction in countries like the United States or France or Britain.

This integration has been achieved, amongst other things, by a novel housing policy. The government controls as much as 90 per cent of low income and middle class housing, allotted to Singaporean citizens at reasonable rates, as per their income levels.

But, central to the integration process, each housing complex has quotas for different communities. A Chinese Buddhist may have an Indian Hindu neighbour who may have a Malay Muslim nearby or a Christian from Kerala.

Compare that with the problems our minorities face when they look for apartments.

The even-handedness with which the government deals with these issues also brings about a feeling of trust, so that when a garden spa is allowed in a national park or when a restaurant complex is permitted on a virgin island, there is no public outrage.

Singapore has also been innovative in its handling of the hawker problem. Hawkers were taken off the streets and put into open ground-level Hawker Centres with permanent food stalls where diners eat at common tables. The rentals are low (S$300 per month).

There is no expenditure on overheads, so a plate of chicken and rice will cost only S$3.

Singapore has also done something Mumbai could emulate — it has recognised that it’s not blessed with too many tourist attractions, so it has used a systematic way to create them.

There is the Great Singapore Sale which goes across most shopping malls, the Arts Festival on now, which brings international artists into the country. There are festivals for fashion, for food, for jewellery, for Diwali… And now they will have the F1, the Singapore Grand Prix, on September 28, the world’s first night time race. No wonder tourism grows at an incredible 9 per cent year a year.

Huge investments in building infrastructure for conferences and meetings result in large increases in business travel, which has made the city No.1 in Asia and third in the world. More is planned: the Marina Bay Sands will create 100,000 sq metres of convention space, 2,500 hotel rooms and 30,000 jobs.

An international tender was floated and the selected bid came from the US’s Sands Corporation who will invest the money in the project.
When you think about it, an annual figure of 10 million visitors in a country of 4.5 million people must pose problems, but also must help in the acceptance of different cultures.

For me the best example is at my doorstep — the reception area of the Shangri La Hotel. The manager of its Valley Wing is a German. The bartenders are Indians, the receptionists are Chinese, the doorkeeper is Nathan from Kerala, magnificent in a Malay warrior’s regalia.

They all smile and greet you with a bonhomie which isn’t United Nations, but is very Singapore.