Mumbai struggles to catch up with Shanghai Mar 16, 2005
By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - The one difference between development - the way it is happening in China and India - is the encumbrance of politics, which becomes inevitable in a vibrant democracy such as India. One of the most recent fallouts has been what is termed here as the "Mumbai-Shanghai plan" - an ambitious aim to convert India's commercial capital into an approximation of Shanghai as India tries to catch up with its giant Asian neighbor that has made fervent economic progress.
But as a reminder that matters in India cannot progress the way they do in China, given the different political structures in the two countries, the plan has stuttered even before it has begun - the problem being the exigencies of power and vote-bank politics.
Mumbai is in no way an approximation of what Shanghai is today. Pollution, encroachment, traffic congestion and unplanned urbanization have taken their toll on India's commercial capital, but the worst has been the sea of slum dwellers who have taken root in Mumbai and who are encouraged and protected by political parties of every hue as they provide a huge catchment area for votes.
The rows and rows of slums that adjoin Mumbai airport do not provide a very palatable first glimpse of the city for international travelers as their plane heads in for landing. Many refer to Mumbai as a "giant ghetto". On the other hand, Pudong airport in Shanghai is as international as any can get, with Mumbai airport a pale comparison; the Maglev - Magnetic Levitation Train - is the fastest rail system in the world, ferrying passengers across Shanghai within minutes, compared to a two-hour journey for similar distances in Mumbai, if one is lucky not to be caught in a traffic jam; Shanghai is a city of high rises and buildings, which have yet to take firm root in Mumbai.
The Shanghai-Mumbai bugle was first sounded by reformist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who said in October 2004 as a build-up to the state elections: "When we talk of a resurgent Asia, people think of the great changes that have come about in Shanghai. I share this aspiration to transform Mumbai in the next five years in such a manner that people would forget about Shanghai and Mumbai will become a talking point," the prime minister said. "I have a dream that we can do it. I believe we can become number one through modernization, expansion and development and make Mumbai the number one city in our country," he added.
Post state elections, a Congress-led government was formed, and in keeping with their electoral promise, the Maharashtra (with Mumbai the state capital) government unveiled a US$6.5 billion plan to refurbish Mumbai into an international city like Shanghai. The national government of Delhi, headed by Manmohan, offered $2 billion over the next five years to turn the city around. The transformation plans include a Mumbai-metro rail link; a trans-harbor project; a ring railway plan and the Wadala truck terminus project; removal of encroachments; beautification of the international airport at Mumbai; urban infrastructural development; and the upgradation of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
The chief minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, has been spearheading the plan, urging New Delhi to earmark more funds. The one ramification has been slum demolitions in Mumbai that have left over 200,000 people displaced as the government tries to free up extremely valuable space for development. According to reports, over 50,000 shanties have been demolished in a few weeks as the administration has bulldozed 200 acres (81 hectares) of illegally occupied government land, with plans to eventually evacuate 2,000 hectares. As per the agreed formula, slums that have taken seed after 1995 were to be demolished, with the inhabitants, who occupy some of the prime locations in Mumbai, relocated into government-provided housing outside the precincts of the city area. This step was also in agreement with a government statute in 2002 that made slum construction post-1995 a cognizable offense.
However, the big arm of politics and the exigencies of retaining vote banks have caught up with Deshmukh. In a clear reminder that development and governance can often be at a cross-roads with political compulsions, Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi, who controls the reigns of the Congress government, including the prime minister, summoned Deshmukh to Delhi last month for a dressing down. The final word was that the slum demolitions were contrary to the Congress Party's pro-poor image, thus the cutoff date for slum demolition has been amended so that shanties built after the year 2000 are destroyed - instead of 1995 - which pretty much retains the status quo of an overpopulated and congested Mumbai.
A much subdued Deshmukh, post his meeting with Gandhi, said his government would focus on the human side of development while carrying out all-round development of the city to improve the quality of life; he said the action program would be for the rehabilitation of those slums which were erected before 2000.
While it is true that any development should incorporate a human face, hard decisions sometimes need to be taken when matters come to a cross. It is perhaps a pitfall as well as a success of democracy that the voice of the most common man or woman has to be incorporated before hard economic decisions based on data and statistics are taken. According to a comment in The Hindustan Times: "Clearing a city of slums is about economics. Shantytowns are choking Mumbai's infrastructure development. But it is also about politics. People lose homes and they have votes. The way to take care of the politics is to offer, as it were, a concrete proof of the government's commitment to those affected by demolition ... Mr Deshmukh was brave to start the drive. He will be braver if he can start off, again, differently."
It has become a fashionable concept in government circles in New Delhi to quote China's success as the model to speed up the Indian economy. A recent note by the Commerce Ministry said that India's foreign investment policy is "no longer a major constraint" and appears to call for "islands of excellence with world class infrastructure" in the port and electricity sectors, and a more "flexible labor market". The Manmohan government has managed to push through reform measures in airlines, telecom and electricity regulation despite opposition from the doctrinaire left parties, a key coalition partner on whose support the Congress government survives.
Indeed, Manmohan's dream to turn Mumbai into Shanghai will undoubtedly happen, but perhaps not at the pace it took place in Shanghai. As is often mentioned here, democracy means that one has to take the staircase to economic success, not the elevator, as in China. The sacrifice is worth it.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
There is a reason for me to post this article dated back in 2005, cos i found so many predictions regarding India's future, its getting really annoying indeed, some could be talking about 2050. Now a prediction, a grand promise your PM made back in 2004 that in 5 yrs, people will forget about Shanghai and Mumbai will become the focal point, now its 2010, 7 yrs later, what happen ? Time to Wake-up
By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - The one difference between development - the way it is happening in China and India - is the encumbrance of politics, which becomes inevitable in a vibrant democracy such as India. One of the most recent fallouts has been what is termed here as the "Mumbai-Shanghai plan" - an ambitious aim to convert India's commercial capital into an approximation of Shanghai as India tries to catch up with its giant Asian neighbor that has made fervent economic progress.
But as a reminder that matters in India cannot progress the way they do in China, given the different political structures in the two countries, the plan has stuttered even before it has begun - the problem being the exigencies of power and vote-bank politics.
Mumbai is in no way an approximation of what Shanghai is today. Pollution, encroachment, traffic congestion and unplanned urbanization have taken their toll on India's commercial capital, but the worst has been the sea of slum dwellers who have taken root in Mumbai and who are encouraged and protected by political parties of every hue as they provide a huge catchment area for votes.
The rows and rows of slums that adjoin Mumbai airport do not provide a very palatable first glimpse of the city for international travelers as their plane heads in for landing. Many refer to Mumbai as a "giant ghetto". On the other hand, Pudong airport in Shanghai is as international as any can get, with Mumbai airport a pale comparison; the Maglev - Magnetic Levitation Train - is the fastest rail system in the world, ferrying passengers across Shanghai within minutes, compared to a two-hour journey for similar distances in Mumbai, if one is lucky not to be caught in a traffic jam; Shanghai is a city of high rises and buildings, which have yet to take firm root in Mumbai.
The Shanghai-Mumbai bugle was first sounded by reformist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who said in October 2004 as a build-up to the state elections: "When we talk of a resurgent Asia, people think of the great changes that have come about in Shanghai. I share this aspiration to transform Mumbai in the next five years in such a manner that people would forget about Shanghai and Mumbai will become a talking point," the prime minister said. "I have a dream that we can do it. I believe we can become number one through modernization, expansion and development and make Mumbai the number one city in our country," he added.
Post state elections, a Congress-led government was formed, and in keeping with their electoral promise, the Maharashtra (with Mumbai the state capital) government unveiled a US$6.5 billion plan to refurbish Mumbai into an international city like Shanghai. The national government of Delhi, headed by Manmohan, offered $2 billion over the next five years to turn the city around. The transformation plans include a Mumbai-metro rail link; a trans-harbor project; a ring railway plan and the Wadala truck terminus project; removal of encroachments; beautification of the international airport at Mumbai; urban infrastructural development; and the upgradation of King Edward Memorial Hospital.
The chief minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, has been spearheading the plan, urging New Delhi to earmark more funds. The one ramification has been slum demolitions in Mumbai that have left over 200,000 people displaced as the government tries to free up extremely valuable space for development. According to reports, over 50,000 shanties have been demolished in a few weeks as the administration has bulldozed 200 acres (81 hectares) of illegally occupied government land, with plans to eventually evacuate 2,000 hectares. As per the agreed formula, slums that have taken seed after 1995 were to be demolished, with the inhabitants, who occupy some of the prime locations in Mumbai, relocated into government-provided housing outside the precincts of the city area. This step was also in agreement with a government statute in 2002 that made slum construction post-1995 a cognizable offense.
However, the big arm of politics and the exigencies of retaining vote banks have caught up with Deshmukh. In a clear reminder that development and governance can often be at a cross-roads with political compulsions, Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi, who controls the reigns of the Congress government, including the prime minister, summoned Deshmukh to Delhi last month for a dressing down. The final word was that the slum demolitions were contrary to the Congress Party's pro-poor image, thus the cutoff date for slum demolition has been amended so that shanties built after the year 2000 are destroyed - instead of 1995 - which pretty much retains the status quo of an overpopulated and congested Mumbai.
A much subdued Deshmukh, post his meeting with Gandhi, said his government would focus on the human side of development while carrying out all-round development of the city to improve the quality of life; he said the action program would be for the rehabilitation of those slums which were erected before 2000.
While it is true that any development should incorporate a human face, hard decisions sometimes need to be taken when matters come to a cross. It is perhaps a pitfall as well as a success of democracy that the voice of the most common man or woman has to be incorporated before hard economic decisions based on data and statistics are taken. According to a comment in The Hindustan Times: "Clearing a city of slums is about economics. Shantytowns are choking Mumbai's infrastructure development. But it is also about politics. People lose homes and they have votes. The way to take care of the politics is to offer, as it were, a concrete proof of the government's commitment to those affected by demolition ... Mr Deshmukh was brave to start the drive. He will be braver if he can start off, again, differently."
It has become a fashionable concept in government circles in New Delhi to quote China's success as the model to speed up the Indian economy. A recent note by the Commerce Ministry said that India's foreign investment policy is "no longer a major constraint" and appears to call for "islands of excellence with world class infrastructure" in the port and electricity sectors, and a more "flexible labor market". The Manmohan government has managed to push through reform measures in airlines, telecom and electricity regulation despite opposition from the doctrinaire left parties, a key coalition partner on whose support the Congress government survives.
Indeed, Manmohan's dream to turn Mumbai into Shanghai will undoubtedly happen, but perhaps not at the pace it took place in Shanghai. As is often mentioned here, democracy means that one has to take the staircase to economic success, not the elevator, as in China. The sacrifice is worth it.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
There is a reason for me to post this article dated back in 2005, cos i found so many predictions regarding India's future, its getting really annoying indeed, some could be talking about 2050. Now a prediction, a grand promise your PM made back in 2004 that in 5 yrs, people will forget about Shanghai and Mumbai will become the focal point, now its 2010, 7 yrs later, what happen ? Time to Wake-up
