'Mumbai needs transport system revamp to become financial hub'

MUMBAI: The government's plan to make Mumbai a global financial hub will be derailed if it does not take steps to revamp the entire transport system as in London or New York, the world's two other major financial centres.
    
London Mayor's Economic Advisor, John Ross, who had prepared the London modernisation plan, told that without investing billions of dollars in having a world-class underground railway system and improved bus connectivity, Mumbai would not be able to become a global financial hub.
   
Citing the example of New York and London, he said 40 per cent of the people in London use public transport while 51 per cent in case of New York.
   
A global financial hub requires concentration of work place in a central area requiring millions of people to travel in and out of the area on a daily basis.
   
If London and Manhattan of New York have become a global financial hub, it is because they have the necessary transport infrastructure to carry millions of people.

Ross, here in connection with the visit of London Mayor Ken Livingstone, on November 21 and 22, said Livingstone would be sharing the London experience on how it dealt with the transport issue and the congestion problem in central London.

The British capital, which was once a manufacturing hub, has become a global financial hub now with the shifting of several manufacturing units to the outskirts. Even the port on river Thames in London has been moved away to decongest the city's traffic.
    
While 35 per cent of the population of London is from abroad, in case of New York it is 40 per cent. If Mumbai becomes a global financial hub, it too would attract a lot of foreigners, Ross said.

In such a scenario, Mumbai will have to have facility of educating children of the foreigners and provide necessary healthcare and cultural activities.

"In India, Mumbai is the only candidate for becoming a financial hub and unless world-class infrastructure was created, I'm afraid it would not become one," Ross said.

Building underground transport infrastructure is very expensive, but the government would have to find ways to build it as a financial hub. Asked about the economic viability of such investments, he said all over the world transport system is subsidised including New York and London.

"In India too, the government will have to subsidise this public utility system for the economy to grow," Ross added.