The government has not addressed the problems and concerns of public charitable trusts at all. As all the members of the association of hospitals are public charitable sickbays, the government needs to solve their grievances as well.
During monsoon, every year there is an outbreak of diseases such as malaria, jaundice and typhoid. This underlines the fact that we need to work towards improving the drainage system. Besides, the citizens also need to inculcate basic civic sense. The system can only work when the public as well as the government work together. People need to get over their habit of spitting and urinating in public places. Basic hygiene needs to be taken care of. Why do we need people to remind us to cover our nose and mouth while coughing or sneezing? In areas where there is water scarcity, we can have dry toilets. The concept has proved to be quite effective in China. Our country is lagging behind in health sector owing to the callousness of both public as well as government.
— Dr Sujit Chatterjee, CEO, LH Hiranandani hospital
Despite several changes in the state government, there has rarely been a review of the state curriculum or a revamp of the syllabus. The government should try to mould our education system to the practical world. This can be done by employing faculty members who have on-field experience. Also, bringing in guest speakers who can give students an idea about the functioning of the professional industries can prove to be of great help. The recent decisions such as online admissions and ATKT rule were apparently taken keeping the holistic development of the students in mind. To improve the literacy rate, the state education should be funded and monitored adequately.This will help boost the standard of education. Parents who cannot afford educating their kids should be introduced to the various schemes introduced by the government. Like China and USA, we need to enforce compulsory education up to the age of 16. Organisations that use child labourers should be penalised severely.
— Supriya Atal, Educationist, faculty with a leading international school
Measures must be taken to tackle overcrowding
By merely implementing big budget projects does not mean that the transportation issues of Mumbai and the metropolitan region have been solved. The centre of focus should be the overcrowded local trains which record close to 4,000 fatalities annually. Trains should ideally run with its design capacity of 200 passengers per coach.
The traffic woes of the city too need quick redressal. By the decision to provide more space for cars, the congestion and pollution levels have only increased. The government should realise that the 146.5 km long metro rail, despite costing more than Rs60,000 crore and taking 20-25 years for the completion of the project, will be able to fulfill only 30% of the current requirement. Simply put, this means a fatality figure of about 1,00,000 plus the several persons who get disabled in such mishaps. Ideally, monorail must be scrapped as it has a very little capacity, speed, high cost and period of implementation. The Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) can easily help solve the issues of the growing population.
— Sudhir Badami, transportation analyst
The municipal corporation in the city is completely under political influence. Moreover, we have a planning authority which does not believe in integrated planning. As a result, there is no accountability. Most of the projects are directed towards helping the government and the contractors rather than towards the development of the city. Earlier, there was some hope of development in the real estate sector. But eventually the promoters themselves became victims of Transferable Development Rights (TDR), encroachment and fraudulent real estate exploitation. Today, TDR is used as a commodity and not as a planning tool. For instance, slum TDR is supposed to facilitate the SRA project. Instead,
the slums have rapidly mushroomed from 40% to 60% in the last decade. What the government has been lacking in so far is the right intent. Let's hope that the new government takes these issues into account before planning their next move. The government procedures need to be more
transparent.
—Nitin Killawala, architect
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