Mumbai: With a population of about 21 million people, and ranking third among the world’s cities in terms of the number of billionaires (386 according to the latest Hurun Rich List), Mumbai suffers from a number of challenges. While the new metro lines, coastal road, Atal Setu and Goregaon Mulund Link Road are promising development, the city is also beset with issues related to infrastructure, transport and public service. As the new government takes shape, here are five things it needs to focus on.
Mumbai needs corporators
The country’s richest civic body and its life force – the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) – has been functioning without corporators for the last three years. The absence of 227 sitting corporators, the longest vacancy in the 150-year history of the civic body, has had a significant impact on governance and the lives of the people.
Unlike MLAs and MPs, councilors are the most accessible elected representatives, often the first point of contact during a crisis.
BMC elections have not been held in the last three years, mainly due to legal challenges over issues such as demarcation of ward boundaries, increase in the number of wards and corporators and holding elections in 92 municipal councils and panchayats without OBC quota. ,
While most of the legal issues have been addressed, the state government has shown little interest in holding elections (although they are conducted by the State Election Commission, the timing is effectively decided by the state government).
Now, with Mahayuti’s impressive victory in the assembly elections, BMC officials are optimistic that the long-awaited civic elections will be held soon.
Since March 2022, the Municipal Corporation Commissioner has served in several key roles – state-appointed administrator, de facto mayor and head of the standing committee. As a result, the system of checks and balances has been replaced by a single decision-making authority, where proposals for the betterment of the city are made, approved and executed by the Municipal Corporation Commissioner alone.
Former Congress corporator Asif Zakaria called corporators “the bridge connecting BMC to citizens”; There is no accountability from the administration in his absence.”
more metro lines
The promise of a well-oiled metro networking 337 km of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) inspired optimism among Mumbaikars when the project was launched in 2008. Sixteen years later, the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited, 50 kilometers long. The Chief Minister will have to ensure that work is expedited on at least 125 km more to connect Greater Mumbai with MMR.
The 125-km network will have five metro lines, which will reduce passenger load from suburban railways. These lines are expected to carry a cumulative 4.5 million passengers per day, although actual ridership numbers are likely to vary once the routes become operational.
Currently, five metro lines exist only on paper.
The 125 km long line includes the 35 km long Airport Line connecting Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport to Navi Mumbai International Airport (Metro 8), the 9.20 km long Gaimukh-Shivaji Chowk/Kashi Mira line (Metro 10), the 12.70-km long . Wadala to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus Line (Metro 11), 23 km Shivaji Chowk/Kashi Mira to Virar Line (Metro 13) and 45 km Kanjurmarg to Badlapur Line (Metro 14).
Dhawal Ashar, Program Head of Integrated Transport at the World Resources Institute, said: “Over the next five years, the MMR is set to expand public transport capacity like never before with over 300 km of metro and hopefully over 10,000 buses. However, to realize the full potential of this potential, the focus needs to be on creating people-friendly infrastructure for all road users; The declining infrastructure for pedestrians is a matter of concern.”
Fast-Tracking MUTP
Although Mumbai’s dense suburban rail network is constantly being upgraded and improved, two phases (3 and 3A) of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), which are currently running at a cost of approx. Monetary stimulus is required from the state to fast track projects worth Rs 45,000 crore.
Estimated cost of MUTP-3 Out of which Rs 10,947 crore Rs 6,129 crore will be raised through debt, while the Union Railway Ministry and the state will have to spend the remaining amount on 50:50 cost-sharing.
A railway official told HT that Indian Railways has been consistently funding projects, but the state government has not been as consistent. The official said that when Uddhav Thackeray was the chief minister, the funding was allegedly stopped due to different political arrangements in the state and the Center and the then CM’s own cautious working style. When Eknath Shinde took command, it gradually gained momentum. “However, the pace of fund disbursement remains inconsistent since the focus is on building metro lines,” the official said.
Some of the major projects planned under MUTP-3 include procurement of 47 AC local trains and quadrupling of Virar and Dahanu Road lines. MUTP-3A includes procurement of 191 AC rakes, renovation of 19 stations and new tracks on the Western and Central lines and extension of the Harbor Line from Goregaon to Borivali.
Nandkumar Deshmukh, president of the Federation of Suburban Railway Passengers Association, blamed red-tapism for the frequent clashes between the railways and the state government. He hopes that things will move forward faster now.
More Best Buses
Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking completed 150 years in May. But with the declining fleet size and mounting losses over the years, the undertaking was in no mood to celebrate.
The transport branch has been struggling to survive for a few decades. This year it has sought grants An investment of Rs 2,812 crore will be made from its parent body – Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation – to increase the fleet size from the current 2,913 to 8,000 by March 2026. Of the existing fleet, the undertaking owns 1,013 buses, while the remaining 1,900 buses are on lease.
Citizen transport forum, Amchi Mumbai, Amchi BEST (AMAB) has been pushing for the need of 6000 buses to cater to the population of Mumbai for almost a year now.
Every year, BEST seeks financial assistance from the civic body, but “availability of funds remains a challenge, to the extent that we have approached financial institutions for credit lines”, said a BEST official on condition of anonymity. But said. Due to lack of funds the undertaking was forced to hire buses. The leased fleet faced some struggles when one operator shut down buses and took 280 buses off the road, affecting half a million passengers recently.
Passengers and BEST unions alike have called for an overhaul of BEST. As Mumbai Metro lines become operational, last mile connectivity becomes important to discourage people from taking private transport.
Another issue hampering the expansion plans to serve 3.2-3.5 million passengers daily is the non-availability of new buses despite placing orders. BEST has proposed to add 1,200 double-decker A/C e-buses, 2,100 single-decker A/C e-buses and 2,650 single-decker A/C e-buses. While orders for 200 A/C double-decker e-buses were placed with Switch Mobility, the manufacturer has supplied only 50 buses so far – rising manufacturing costs have put the rest of the orders on hold for almost a year. The undertaking is also struggling to procure 2,100 single-decker e-buses from Olectra Greentech, which has supplied only 300 buses so far.
The dwindling fleet will only mean that more people will switch to self-owned vehicles or use cabs, leading to more congestion on Mumbai’s already jammed roads.
Fleet expansion is the key to BEST’s revival, but the buses should be owned and operated by the transport utility and not through contractors. The performance of the contractors has proved disappointing,” said AMAB convenor Hussain Indorewala. “While BEST is already an arm of BMC, its budget should be merged with BMC, the way the Indian Railways budget was merged with the Union budget,”
Old Sobo buildings need revival
There are more than 19,000 derelict buildings in South Mumbai, of which only one-third have been rebuilt. The remaining 13,000 buildings older than 80 years are awaiting reconstruction. Over the past three decades, a handful of buildings have collapsed every monsoon, causing loss of lives. Residential buildings constructed before 1960 in Maharashtra are called cess properties because they pay cess (also called repair fund) to the government.
The new government needs to immediately address the plight of lakhs of residents living in these cessed buildings. Along with embarking on the redevelopment of Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest slums, the state will also need to focus its attention on revitalizing South Mumbai through policy interventions that are beneficial to its residents.
Eknath Rajpure, who heads residents’ organization MHADA Sangharsh Kriti Samiti and himself a resident of one of the 388 dilapidated MHADA buildings, said the government is promoting cluster redevelopment, where multiple plots have been merged (Bhendi Bazaar , Kamathipura, BDD) Chawl and Abhyudaya Nagar), the small plots on which their buildings stand in South Mumbai have not been attractive to builders. “The state should amend the existing development control and promotion rules to make such stand-alone buildings viable for developers and bring a change in the lives of people,” Rajapure said.
