Comment

A visitor to this city remarked on how clean Bandra was — much to her surprise. Cities are dirty after all, she continued, so how did Bandra and the whole of Mumbai manage?
I don’t know if Bandra has been spruced up specially for the ongoing festival but it does seem as if the Clean Up campaign initiated by the municipal corporation is working.

The city does look a bit cleaner. There are still not enough dustbins, but garbage is less visible.

As for the traffic cops, after a few years of wearing the Harry Potter invisibility cloak — and popping up from behind a tree only at hafta collection time — it looks like Mumbai is being policed again.

Attempts to reintroduce traffic discipline into what was once a smoothly running city might be impossible, but our errant motorists know that they have to buckle up, not drink if they’re driving and hide that cell phone.

The task of getting motorcyclists to understand the importance of helmets is slower and more painful. The wind through your hair today is apparently more precious than your skull.

What do these relatively small initiatives prove? That a little bit of diligence and public education and you achieve at least the semblance of a well-run institution.

It seems that all Mumbai really needs is for the authorities involved in the running of the city to knuckle down, involve citizens — and some local area committees have been successful — and just get on with their work.

But the vision for Mumbai for the last 10 years has been limited to big schemes. The more money involved, the better the scheme.

Feasibility, convenience, heritage, environmental and people considerations all take the backseat to the money angle. Deals are transparent — that is, everyone can see that politicians and developers want to make money.

Mumbai has become the stepchild of the state, and like Cinderella, made to do all the work, or, if you want another metaphor, like a milch cow to be bled but not fed.

The current fight over the repeal of the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA) adds that touch of curiousness to a messy situation.

The state government has committed to repealing the Act, so it can get funds from the Centre under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNURM), for mega transport and drainage projects for Mumbai.

The state government, caught in a web of vested interests and political pressures, has been doing a variety of intriguing dances on the issue — swooping curves, back flips and sidestepping for good measure.

Is Mumbai being held to ransom by political concerns about money and land? Is it true that the Act was never really implemented? What is the trade-off between releasing land and Mumbai getting access to world-class transportation and drainage facilities? Why should Mumbai lose so that everyone else wins?

If ULCRA and JNURM are connected and Mumbai’s future depends on the scrapping of the first to fund the second, what should the state government’s priorities be?

For me, as I’m sure for most citizens of the city, that’s a no-brainer. Clearly, our politicians think otherwise.

Which means we have to leave the massive ambitious plans to look after themselves. The Shanghai-World Financial Centre dream offers very little to the average Jai or Jamini except a money-making opportunity.

Instead, the constant concentration has to be on maintaining existing facilities and monitoring their smooth progress. In their own small ways, the Clean Up and traffic police campaigns attempt this.

The tragedy is that we have to term ‘campaigns’ what ought to be routine matters. The job of the traffic police is to keep Mumbai’s traffic flowing smoothly and ensure that rules are followed.

This is everyday stuff, regardless of whether we have 7000 flyovers or 70, sky buses, underground railways or not. So with garbage. No project is going to eliminate daily garbage collection.

So, to my visitor friend, I can only say thank you for noticing. But really, the work has just begun.

Email: b_ranjona@dnaindia.net