01 - my mumbai - a city ignored

Its really surprising how a city like Mumbai can continue to exist over the years with the same set of socio-economic issues year on year. Whats even more interesting is that no one that has the ability to impact the standard of life in this city - be it administerators, politicians and bureaucrats is ever held accountable for the pathetic state of this city.
And therefore year on year, we hear about the same problems plaguing the city - inability of the meteorological department to give us a correct weather forecast (and therefore 80 plus people die), inability of the town planning department to provide enough motorable roads (and therefore never ending traffic jams in every part of the city) and enough housing facilities to the poor (and therefore 54% of the population of Mumbai continues to live in slums) and the ineffectiveness of the law and order machinery to provide us basic safety ( and therefore young innocent girls get raped repeatedly) . I can go on and on highlighting the basic issues facing the people of Mumbai but it is of little use. And then one reads about certain politicians dreaming of making Mumbai the next Shanghai... what a joke.

Instead of focusing on any of the above issues, our city administrators obviously have more important issues to focus on. These would include shutting down girlie/ dance bars (and thereby deny employment to thousands of women and men) and selling of indistrial mill land. (and thereby making crores of rupees for a select few)

What this city needs is a local governance model. An independant executive body needs to be created that is directly made responsible for all city services such as law enforcement, works hand in hand with the local state government on issues such as infrastructure development and manages the city administeration right from protecting the cultural heritage of the city to managing transportation facilities to looking after the economic development of Mumbai. (One possible model for governance and some initial thoughts on the same are depicted in the diagram above)

However, this does not seem to be the common consensus of the general public at large. I read about Raell Padamsee's JAAG India campaign. I heard people talk about AGNI (Action for Good Governance and Net Working in India and all the promises that holds..) I also saw newspapers and people on television talking glowingly about the spirt of the Mumbaikers. Please people... these are two separate issues that need to be acknowledged and digested separately.

Not for a moment do I absolve the people of Mumbai for the state of their city. In our kind of societies, does the general public have no role to play in the governance of their cities or choosing the people who govern them. Since enough has been written and talked about this matter, lets leave it at that....

For the moment, we the people, should just support serious PILs like the JAAG India campaign and the AGNI movement, to do our bit for the future of Mumbai. The country is a different conversation all together...so thats later