It's possible to transform Mumbai into a world-class city in five years, says Johny

Mumbai will have 24x7 water supply, world-class roads, updated sewerage and storm water drain networks — all in the next five years.

Are these stuff dreams are made of? No, these would happen for real, said outgoing municipal commissioner Johny Joseph and his team of IAS officers. 

In a well-attended press conference at the BMC headquarters on Thursday, Joseph, tipped to be the state’s next chief secretary, and his men, painted a rosy picture of the city’s progress to attain world-class status. And if they are to be believed, the sweeping reforms envisaged would be implemented latest by 2012.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Manu Srivastava said a seven-pronged approach would bring about a sea change in this Maximum City. “Strengthening civic infrastructure, social infrastructure, cleanliness and beautification, citizen facilitation centres, disaster preparedness, eco-housing and institutional reforms within the BMC will bring about the desired changes,” he said.

A documentary on the Mithi River Development Work was also shown at the briefing. Underlining that the fast-growing city (Mumbai’s population is estimated to cross the 144.15 lakh by 2011) needed urgent water reforms, Srivastava said, “The civic body is geared towards making 24/7 water supply available. It needed augmentation of water resources, demand-supply side management.” Conceding clearance delays in major water supply projects like the Rs 1329-crore Middle Vaitarna (the project that will bring an additional 455 Million Litres Daily (MLD) to the city took 15 years to take off, he stressed the administration was keen to expedite future projects.

“We have invited tenders for most components of the Middle Vaitarna project. The work should start by May 2007 and complete by 2011. We have simultaneously begun working on the Gargai (455MLD) and Pinjal (865 MLD) water projects,” he said. To ensure efficiency of the supply network, the corporation plans to meter all water connection (2.5 lakh in city) using the universal metering system. There was also a proposal to introduce telescopic rates enabling citizens to pay water charged based on per capita consumption. “Globally 150 million litres is considered as the standard per capita water consumption.

“Anyone drawing more water than the norm will be charged more,” Srivastava said.  To manage supply better, BMC, he said, had appointed a consultant to carry out a comprehensive water audit that would account for leakages, wastage due to unaccounted for water and plan for a more equitable distribution of water.

The consultant’s appointment, however, drew flak from councillors and is yet to be okayed by the general body of the BMC.

“If all the reforms were met, 24/7 water supply is possible,” Srivastava said.

However, officials from BMC hydraulic department did not sound that optimistic. “He is painting a dream. The infrastructure is not there,” a senior official said. Additional municipal commissioner Srikant Singh claimed that city roads would be ready to meet technical norms by 2011. Singh said, “The BMC had decided to lay importance on median dividers.”

Of the 1941-km of the road network in BMC’s control, 351 km was concretised. This year 178 km will be asphalted while 22 km will be  concretised. At least 320 km of footpaths will be made,” Singh said.

“Repeated digging by the utilities and government agencies and inadequate stormwater disposal system were burdening the roads,” he said. He added, “Despite a policy of restricting permissions for trenching, we had to allow digging activity at 400 km of roads this year. Coordination between the agencies will take five years,” he said. The civic body plans to complete priority works under Rs 5570.40-crore Mumbai Sewarage Disposal Project-II for the updation of sewerage network and Rs1800-crore BRIMSTOWAD project which will upgrade city’s drainage network by 2011.