Slum dog Millionaire may earn a few Oscar Awards to make
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
Author: Bikash Choudhury, Chief Executive of Strategy Consulting Firm 'STREBEN MARKETING SERVICES' based at
email: streben.market@gmail.com & bikashchoudhury@sify.com
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