Bury Slum Dog in Mumbai

Slum dog Millionaire may earn a few Oscar Awards to make India proud for the Indian context depicted or caricatured in the movie by Danny Boyle and the artist, majority of whom are Indians; but the context would live on. On the contrary, if the movie makes our politicians, bureaucrats and opinion-makers think a little about the pain and agony of people particularly children living in the toxic environment of Mumbai slums; then that would be more than all the Oscars put together because that will help germinate a will power to bury the slums of Mumbai in the nearest sea shore for good.

Currently approximately 80 lakh people live in slums of Mumbai in total area of about 20 squares Km. Slum dog millionaire has shown the life inside the slum in great detail for viewers of the movie to almost test the life themselves. Now, can we show some hope for the people living their. A modicum of shelter to live with dignity as human being and facility of very basic necessity like portable water and arrangement to attend to natures call with minimum standard of hygiene. This may be a tall order for Mumbai. But, People must now think of possibility of change at the least. There after only some action would take shape. Global Consulting firm Mckinsey and Company prepared report titled “Vision Mumbai” to turn Mumbai into a world class city by 2013. The report has a blue print for Mumbai’s overall development which covers focus areas like Housing, Transportation, Infrastructure and Governance. The total estimated cost would be @ $ 50 billion USD. Political parties are busy preparing their election manifesto for the general election tentatively for April 2009; Mumbaits must ensure that the Issue of Mumbai’s Development prominently figures in the election manifesto of all political parties in the general election. Mumbai contributes 40 % of all tax revenue to central govt. and 40 % of exports sail thru Mumbai, it is time, city gets its priority right.

After all, Government is an organization and there is a limit at which it can alleviate the problems of its all citizens; it is imperative for the private sector and the beneficiaries to poll together their resources to find solution to intractable problems like that of urban housing to remove slums.However, govt. must facilitate private participation by removing hurdles like Urban Land Ceiling Act., the Rent Control Act. and time taken for building approvals. Mumbai would require around 20 lakh dwellings for the slums alone. It may be attractive for private sector to partly subsidies the cost of dwellings of slums by constructing one lakh HIG homes for the middle class and rich and premium commercial space. The project could consider vertical city design of World Trade Centre New York destroyed in 9/11 terrorist strike. Our premier technical institutions like IIT, Indian institute of science and Building Research Institute must study to develop new technology and building materials to deal with the challenges of low cost urban shelter. Once Govt. decides to implement the project; the scale and quantum of the work involved would attract all the Global biggies in Real Estate Industry including a few of our own like L&T ECC, HCC, S&P, DLF and Unitech group.The project would drum up demand for steel, cement, construction equipment, Commercial Vehicles and many other related industry at a time like this with sluggish economy. Hope Slumdog Millionaire would be the last movie on the life of Mumbai Slum because none would stand on the soils of Mumbai.

Bury Slum Dog in Mumbai

Author: Bikash Choudhury, Chief Executive of Strategy Consulting Firm 'STREBEN MARKETING SERVICES' based at Bhubaneswar, Orissa. Contact: Mobile: 00 9853426657 Tel: 91-674-2720271

email: streben.market@gmail.com & bikashchoudhury@sify.com