Mumbai can do without fancy infra for now, suggest planners

MMRDA has been facing stiff resistance to construction of the Metro-9 (Dahisar to Bhayander) rail route and car shed from locals. Pic/Nimesh Dave

The larger crisis of medical students returning from Ukraine also reflects the skewed growth graph of our cities and urban hubs, where overall balanced growth has been lacking, leading to focus only on built infrastructure. Mumbai and its neighbouring cities are no exception. Though the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) was expected to prepare regional plans, conceive, promote and monitor key projects for developing new growth centres around Mumbai, the target cities still count low on the human development index.

The MMRDA is currently responsible for the balanced development of the entire Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which is spread over 6,328 sq km. It consists of nine municipal corporations namely Greater Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli, Navi Mumbai, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi-Nizamapur, Vasai-Virar, Mira-Bhayandar and Panvel; and nine municipal councils comprising Ambarnath, Kulgaon-Badalapur, Matheran, Karjat, Khopoli, Pen, Uran, Alibaug and Palghar, along with more than 1,000 villages in Thane, Raigad and Palghar districts. "The focus has always been on big-ticket infra projects like metros, roads and bridges and connectivity to match the consistent new building complexes coming around MMR. But with so much connectivity and housing, where will the people go for their needs? Social infrastructure is completely lacking and the existing limited schools and hospitals, and other such facilities get to arm-twist the common man," said Ashok Datar, chairman of Mumbai Environment Social Network (MESN), who has been following up with the MMRDA on these issues for several years now.

Jagdeep Desai, Ashok Datar, AV Shenoy and Jitendra Gupta

The fact that one lakh medical students from India need to go abroad to countries like Ukraine, Russia, China, Romania, Datar adds, is reflection of the current plight. "It is not for quality [education]; currently, there are only 83,000 seats in medical colleges. The government needs to reserve land for education and hospitals. We need to focus on producing more doctors and nurses. Investment in roads, rail and bridges create limited employment as compared to comprehensive health management and quality education," he says. Jitendra Gupta, member of advocacy group Mumbai Citizens' Committee, agrees. He says that there's no sense in the planning process, when it comes to building infra projects for the city.

A yet-to-release report by city-based Mumbai Mobility Forum Cities - a group of transport experts involved with the government in discussions and suggestions for improvement of civic amenities, transport and public infrastructure, engineers and city planners - states that "planning should start at the election manifesto level, detailing hospitals, education logistics and research labs". "Every growth centre should be self-sufficient with citizens not requiring to move out of their zones. This will automatically bring down costs," the report points out.

Incidentally, the Human Development Report prepared for Mumbai suburban city limits, a few years ago, by the Union Ministry of Housing and the State Planning Board had chalked out many gross imbalances. "The spread of the schools across the city and its civic wards is uneven and this has significant implications. Playgrounds are another missing facility with just 36 per cent schools having the facility... there is need for urban renewal with inclusive growth," the report adds.

The business plan of the MMR, made by the MMRDA as part of the preparatory studies for the Regional Plan (2016-36), shows that the private sector has emerged as a major player in provision of education and health infrastructure. According to AV Shenoy of Mumbai Vikas Samiti, an organisation of professionals and retired engineers working on ideas and solutions for civic welfare, the reason why state governments are not interested in developing schools, hospitals and social organisations, is because these sectors invite "low rating points". "Politicians are interested in visible development, which can garner more publicity. In addition, these projects are high value and there is more scope for corruption. Roads, flyovers, metros lie in such categories and are thus, more attractive to them. The Coastal Road will only benefit two lakh wealthy passengers travelling by cars. Even the bullet train falls in the same category." Shenoy says that schools and hospitals not only need the hardware, the buildings and equipment, but also trained manpower like teachers, doctors, nurses, technicians, which the government finds difficult to recruit and retain due to low salaries. "A major policy shift is required; COVID-19 has showed us that only the government can mobilise resources to contain a pandemic."

Jagdeep Desai, a practising architect since 1983 and a visiting faculty at architecture colleges in Mumbai and Gujarat, feels that the MMRDA should shift focus from Mumbai, and concentrate on the development of its surrounding areas. "This will automatically ease pressure on Mumbai," he said, adding, "In fact, the MMRDA should ideally implement the PURA [Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas] scheme, thought of by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, to ensure wholesome development."

When contacted, Metropolitan Commissioner SVR Srinivas said that when it comes to the development of social infrastructure, MMRDA only prepares the framework "through regional and spatial plan". "The local bodies are supposed to build these social facilities. They can do it from their resources or can come up with an innovative plan and get a grant from the government too."

Need more housing

The latest statistics of house listing data reveals that the total number of newly added houses between 2001 and 2011 available in major municipal areas in MMR exceeds the number of additional households in MMR by as much as 54 per cent. Yet, there is a shortage. This is because 14 per cent of the houses are vacant and 21 per cent are put to uses other than residential purpose.

What the DP Plan states

Education: The area of each school site should be between 1.67 and 2.51 sqm per pupil in the city. Playgrounds for each school should be 2.09 sqm (primary) and 3.01 sqm (secondary) per pupil in the city and suburbs.

Health: One dispensary site of size 668.9 sqm should be provided for population of 50K covering area of 1.5 km radius. A 50-bedded maternity home for population of 1,00,000.

09
No. of civic corporations that MMRDA looks after