dp
habitat
January - 07
HB00
THE DECCAN HERALD, BANGALORE, 20 JAN 2007
The ordinary citizen
is forgotten
I
f I told you that in the
old days when central
planning was alive
and well there were
moments when the location of a public toilet in
Kerala could be decided by
the Planning Commission
in Delhi would you believe
me? It's true. And, if you go
through records of the old
days and trawl the archives
of Yojana Bhavan you will
come up with any number of
instances in which the most
trivial decisions were taken
at the highest level.
Often this resulted, and
continues to result, in
poverty relief programmes
so absurd that thousands of
crore rupees could be spent
on schemes that delivered
Rs 100 a month as pension to
some old lady in Tamil
Nadu. Having begun my career as a political journalist
in Delhi and having observed at close quarters the
absurdity of trying to run a
sub-continent with 'central
planning' I am a passionate
believer in elected local governments as being the solution to nearly all our governance problems.
We need elected mayors
at the head of city governments with sufficient funds
to take full care of the city's
needs and we need elected
village governments with at
least enough money to control their own schools, hospitals and infrastructure development. With this in
mind and because I believe
that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)
is one of the most incompetent municipal governments in the world I have
been keeping a close watch
on the impending election.
Two things have shocked
me.
1/2
For several days now I
have been reading details of
the declared assets and income of the men who are
contesting elections and
find myself stunned at how
rich they are. Let me give
you two examples. Rajesh
Sharma of the BJP has declared himself wort h Rs
23.41 cr. He has been elected
to the BMC for the past ten
years. In this time he handled various portfolios like
'market redevelopment' but
claims that his assets are
the result of. his being fro m
a 'zamindari family' i n Uttar Pradesh. What makes
the absurdit y of this clai m
even more absurd is that he
owns only Rs 20.25 lakh
wort h agricultural land and
Rs 22.84 cr wort h of nonagricultural land. How
bizarre is that for a 'zamindar' ?
Then we have Sunil Prabhu who is wort h Rs 7.2 cr
and has also been around i n
the BMC for ten years. He
does not make any claims t o
feudal wealt h and admits
that he began life as a personal assistant of Shiv Sena
MLA, Gajanan Kirtikar. So
obviously the BMC provides
a career opportunit y more
lucrative than being a businessman or a professional.
Is this why some of those
who failed t o get tickets t o
contest resorted t o desperate measures like threatening to burn themselves alive
outside their party offices?
Habitat situation in India
The other shocking thing
about the impending BMC
election is the manner i n
which it seems t o have lured
every small- and big-time
crook i n the city. A newspaper published a list of candidates wit h criminal records
contesting fro m the suburb
of Malvani. Charges ranged
from assault t o murder and
there seems t o be no political part y that is averse t o
putting up hardened criminals as their candidates. Is it
any wonder that Mumbai is
one of the worst governed
cities i n the world? Is it any
wonder that even men wit h
terroris m charges against
the m like the al-Qaeda recruit, Mohammad Afzal,
contested elections in Mumbai before going back to jail?
Men wit h criminal records
are not usuall y interested i n
making laws or governance
so Mumbai suffers and
more than half its citizens
live i n sickening squalor.
As someone who has on
many occasions wandered
about this city' s slums allow
me to describe for you how
more than half the citizens
of Mumbai live. Their
homes are windowless hovels that often have mud
floors which i n the long,
hard rainy season become
contaminated wit h sewage.
Even 'pucca' floors do not
escape because when it
rains reall y hard the hovels
become cesspools till the
water drains. People who
live i n these slums have no
access t o clean drinking water, sanitation or waste disposal. The level of filt h be-
2/2
comes so extraordinary that
municipal officials rarely
bother to clean the stinking
toilets and open drains. As
for waste disposal in the absence of a proper system
residents are obliged to use
the nearest waste ground to
dump their garbage. Hard
layers of filth form over the
years and it is here that children play and adults perform their daily ablutions.
If Mumbai had a powerful elected mayor, like New
York, London or Paris, he
would be obliged to ensure
that the city provided at
least minimum amenities to
all its citizens. Instead of
slums there would be lowincome housing and access
to clean public toilets at the
very least. The BMC has ignored its fundamental duties to ordinary citizens and
concentrated its energies on
serving the interests of
richer citizens by allowing
glittering, new apartment
blocks to rise and 'beautification' drives in areas
where the rich live. Is this
because the rich have a
stronger voice or because
there is more money to be
made out of serving the interests of the rich? Mumbai
is the key to the future of urban India. If change comes
it will have to begin here.
<title>The ordinary citizen is forgotten</title>
<author>Tavleen Singh</author>
<keywords>LR1 TS1-H</keywords>
<publication>The Deccan Herald</publication>
<pubDate>20/01/2007</pubDate>
<description>If I told you that in the old days when central
planning was alive and well there were moments when the location of a public toilet in Kerala could be decided by
the Planning Commission in Delhi would you believe
me? It's true. And, if you go through records of the old
days and trawl the archives of Yojana Bhavan you will
come up with any number of instances in which the most
trivial decisions were taken at the highest level</description>
<classif>J30a</classif>
<entrydt>29/01/2007</entrydt>
<sd>VP</sd>
Habitat situation in India