Transforming Mumbai

Rs 2,000 billion is what Mumbai needs to be a Shanghai | Indian Express
Bombay First & McKinsey have submitted a report to Maharashtra government to improve mumbai and roadmap to achieve these goals by 2013...

• Boost economic growth to 8-10 per cent instead of 2.4 presently. That should create half a million new jobs.
• Improve mass and private transport infrastructure through new rail lines, expressways and buses. Eventually, no more than 220 people in a rail coach, compared to the 570 today.
• Reduce the slum population by at least 20 per cent from 60 per cent presently by constructing one million homes.
• Other improvements: reduce air pollution, increase water supply, cut administrative expenses by half, and, the most important, cut red tape.

But I am very sceptical whether these plan or any other plan with similar intentions will ever start. The politics and red tape are the biggest hurdle in its path. The other hurdles are opprotunitic people, pro-poor activists & lazy attitude of all of us. We should realize that problem of our slum city is very serious and must be dealt urgently, otherwise we will have to actually rename mumbai (bombay) to "Slum City". Politcians would first like to see their name to be attached with the projects, so if congress does it, shiva sena will oppose it and vice-a-versa. The biggest looser in this game would be an avergae "mumbaikar", the middle-class person who is always screwed first. The prime and public land in the entire mumbai either belongs to rich or poor(slums) and despite paying tax regularly and living a very hard life the mumbaikar ultimately has '0' options available to him. From the start of the day till night an average mumbaikar is fighting, fighting and fighting. We need somebody like Tamil Nadu CM Chandra Babu Naidu to bring life in this city and to have some hope for the working class and stop giving free lunches to 'rich only' or to 'poor only'.