The report has pointed out huge gaps in the income and social spheres and identified Mumbai as the city with the most inequities in India.
Once urbs prima in Indis, Mumbai is now, at best, an imperfect city. As the city struggles to become a world-class metropolis, a human development report, released last week by the BMC, shows that a measure of well-being still eludes large sections of the society. The report has pointed out huge gaps in the income and social spheres and identified Mumbai as the city with the most inequities in India.
Now, the time has come to devise a set of options to help tweak the system to the city’s advantage. It’s time for Mumbai’s ‘Megamorphosis’. Town planners, city managers (bureaucrats), and corporate honchos will set the agenda for the city’s development at a two-day conference beginning on November 9 at the Trident, Nariman Point. Titled ‘Megamorphosis — the Resurgence of Mumbai’, it has been organised by Bombay First, a corporate initiative, in association with civic agencies like the BMC, MMRDA, Cidco, Mumbai Transformation Support Unit, and the World Bank. The conference is supported by DNA.
White papers on sectors like housing, physical infrastructure, social infrastructure, economic growth, and governance will be presented by research firms, including McKinsey & Co, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Deloitte Haskins & Sell, and Janagraha.
Committees formed by Bombay First for these sectors include town planners like Neera Adarkar, former municipal commissioner Sharad Kale, present urban development secretary Manu Kumar Shrivastav, and Bombay First vice-chairman Ashank Desai.
Participants, who include invitees from cities like Singapore and London, will discuss the findings and draw up a roadmap for the city.
Questions like ‘will a single nodal agency for public transport be the solution to decongest Mumbai? Does Mumbai need a rail link? When is the right time for a congestion tax to be introduced?’ will be explored. To avert a repeat of the current water crisis, proposals like wastewater recycling and universal metering will also be discussed.
Narinder Nayar, chairman, Bombay First, said, “A metamorphosis in thinking, mindsets, attitudes, and behaviour of its people is required to transform Mumbai. We need to create high-impact visibility and ensure changes happen at the ground level for that.”
Desai, a member of Bombay First’s education sub-group, underlined the need for white papers on various sectors, including education. “At present, there is a vast difference in the quality of education accessible to children from different sections, a problem that needs to be addressed by strengthening public-private partnerships through innovative programmes such as the school voucher system,” he said.
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