It may be hard to believe that Mumbai recorded its slowest population growth in almost a century, in the last decade. The population of the island city shrunk by 5.75% from 2001 to 2011, recording the sharpest drop in south Mumbai since 1901, according to Census data. The reasons attributed for this subdued growth are varied, smaller families, less affordable homes in cities and suburbs as well leading to migration to Thane and outskirts.
Whilst the growth decline is good news, it can't undermine the challenges posed by the existing population. In 2012, the Mumbai population stands at 1.3 Cr which works out to over 20,000 people per sq km.
A
measure of the quality of life people lead in Mumbai can be estimated by the
Human Development Index (HDI) – a statistic that incorporates the economic,
educational and health conditions of people. Whilst the share of slum population is negligible in the city (Marine Lines) it is as high as 85% in eastern suburbs of Kurla and Ghatkopar (as per 2009 HDR).
One can keep on writing oodles of articles on the issues facing Mumbai. In fact, the favorite pass time during coffee table chats in social and corporate circles is to crib about the pathetic civic standards of Mumbai and curse the corrupt politicians. But beyond that, very few citizens contribute in any way to solve the issues. I would like to put forth six key challenges in any urban location in India as below;
One can keep on writing oodles of articles on the issues facing Mumbai. In fact, the favorite pass time during coffee table chats in social and corporate circles is to crib about the pathetic civic standards of Mumbai and curse the corrupt politicians. But beyond that, very few citizens contribute in any way to solve the issues. I would like to put forth six key challenges in any urban location in India as below;
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| The Urban Challenges
We know the problems, let me try to put forth fundamental steps that each of us could possible take to see incremental improvement.
Road: Absence of Road or Shoddy quality of road is the most common complaint in a city like Mumbai. What can we do about it? Follow these steps, be alert and followup with the authorities and dont give up !!
1) Spot a pothole 2) Get road's name 3) If possible, try to identify which agency is responsible for the road, else visit the nearest BMC office to ascertain the agency 4) Locate the complaint office and lodge the complaint. Or go online (www.mcgm.gov.in / www.voiceofcitizen.com) or over phone (108 / 1916 / 22694727) 5) The complaint officer will transfer the application to the concerned road department. 6) The executive engineer (Maintenance), roads will ask contractor to fix the pothole
Alternative Transportation: Population explosion and slow pace of capacity expansion in road or rail has resulted in overburdening the existing transportation systems. What can we do about it?
Coastal Waterways is an excellent complementary transport solution which Mumbai could leverage. Given that Mumbai is an island city, it is a surprise that we have not as yet leveraged the waterways. With appropriate government support, the waterway enterprise can be made viable and can help Mumbaikars immensely. It is possible for citizen groups to lobby and push this idea !!
Encroachment of Public space:
Citizen groups need to be united on the issue of indiscriminate encroachment on streets, footpaths by hawkers, slum dwellers. First step which citizens need to take is file complaint on the BMC portal and actively followup....Alert citizens will only be able to help make a change.
Waste Management:
Non biodegradable waste is waste that will never break down into part of the earth. What can we do to contain the tons of waste that is getting created by us on a daily basis?
Every citizen can do his least by ensuring segregation of waste in dry and wet and into non-biodegradable waste. Ensuring segregation at source of generation is a big help towards waste management.
Every housing society should appoint a small team of waste management volunteers and drive this. There are several NGOs working in the area of Waste management who can guide citizen groups in this.
Education reform:
Focus of pre-primary education in India needs to change from pure play academics to hygiene, sanitation and civic discipline. What can we do about it?
Set up like minded learned people and propose focused lessons in municipal and government schools. This will go a long way in making Mumbai and our country a cleaner and safer place to live.
Employing disabled:
About 3% of our population suffers from some or the other form of disability. These disabled need to be trained and supported by the society so that they can lead a respectable life. What can we do about it?
Nature keeps the balance by making disabled extremely strong in one or the other ability. It is possible for small, medium and large entrepreneurs to employ disabled, train them and leverage their abilities for their benefit. There are umpteen examples of entrepreneurs who have employed deaf, dumb, blind etc...in their enterprise and been satisfied with the quality of output.
Are you doing your bit for the society?
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Good article.
ReplyDeleteI would like to also draw attention to few other points.
Most of the actionggested will not get implemented due to high level of corruption in offices who are responsible to take action in first place. Although we all agree that corruption is our biggest problem, there is no easy and apparent solution to address that.
Safety - Prosperousity and security goes together. Most developed cities have safe environments for businesses as well as general population. I think extortion is still one of major issue which Mumbai has to tackle.
Developing alternate business locations - if Mumbai can develop surrounding areas as viable business centers then it would automatically reduce strain on transportation, high real estate cost and in general, help to increase standard of living.
I am sure there are few more areas to work on. Any positive steps towards improving those would be step in right order.
Vaibhav
Informative article Parag specially on the bits what everyone can do about these things.
ReplyDeletePeople have lot of good ideas and overall everyone wants progress however as we all know the main plague affecting our city/ state/ country is corruption at all levels within government and politicians. From traffic mama's to the largest government tenders. Effective and speedy law enforcement is probably a big part of the solution however it is questionable how effective and speedy this can get when there are such vested interests.
One solution to this could be (and this is a bit of radical thinking) to standardize and legalize the bribes taken. Advantages would be: 1) people will know what to expect in terms of bribes to pay, speediness of service, etc, 2) there would be an incentive inbuilt for the work doer, 3) unaccounted money can hopefully become accounted for as this would be a legal payment instead of under the table.
Biggest disadvantages would be that poor people would get slaughtered in this model. However if one thinks about it they get slaughtered even in today's model!
Thinking bit differently, for every service (e.g. railway/bus tickets, passports, ration cards, water/ gas connections, municipal work, etc, etc) there should be a "Premium processing" line where depending on the demand one can pay 3-4-5 times the normal rates to get things done quickly. At least people can then chose what they need as priority and what they can do with the normal/ slow processing. The extra money earned can then be used to support this additional machinery required or an additional remuneration for the same employees so that government jobs become as well paid as private sector.
Ujwal