In helping Adani make huge profits through the Dharavi slum redevelopment project in Mumbai the authorities are harming public transport and also shooting themselves in the foot.
In a shocking move, the authorities have decided to close down two BEST bus depots at Dharavi and the one adjoining it , Kala Killa. This will be a severe blow to bus commuters who are already under stress, suffering from the deterioration of bus services, they have to stand upto one hour for a bus because of the government’s extreme callousness. Plus there will be a multiplier , negative impact on the city at large and motorists as well and the Metro rail network.
Motorists need to recognise that an efficient bus service is in their interest, any depletion in bus service means roads will be more crowded and congestion will increase. Besides, the huge increase in high rises that the Dharavi project entails will add to the heat island effect. A front page report in the Times of India yesterday points to the disastrous impact of skyscrapers on the climate and senior architects like Anant Gadgil have been warning against this phenomenon.
So even assuming that the Metro rail project recovers from the disastrous shape it is in currently, we will still be in a deep crisis as there will be few buses in operation and that will erode the already poor connectivity at Metro rail stations.
The authorities are exposing themselves to extreme ridicule before the international community, in all decent societies public transport is being boosted while here it looks as if they are out to strangulate it , there would be no exaggeration in saying that.
There is also a deep irony that while the government has mercilessly cut trees, acquired forest area and other areas for Metro train operations, it is giving away precious land of BEST bus depots so vital for the needs of a growing city.
So an excellent legacy of low cost bus transport we have is being subverted and we are being inflicted with an monumentally expensive and highly disruptive Metro rail network which will take years and years to yield even modest results.
The authorities talk of boosting infrastructure all the time. What we see is that infrastructure for a minority of rich people is being created, given high priority while an existing excellent public transport network is being systematically undermined. The whole idea it seems is to keep the working people under pressure all the time, give them no relief, they are made to fight for survival, their backs pushed to the wall, so that their spirits are crushed so that the ruling circles continue to amass huge profits,
The result is there is a very big increase in the number of rich who are occupying all prime land in the city, everywhere one sees shops selling luxury goods, while a shop one needs for daily supplies is far away, one has to hunt for it.
Besides, even an elementary study of public housing in the U.S. shows that the high rise solution for slum dwellers has ended in disaster. Have our authorities even heard of the well studied failure of the Pruitt Igoe project done by Minoru Yamasaki , architect, in the 1950s, He also designed the World Trade Centre in the U.S. ?
In an earlier outrageous move to benefit the Adani project, the government has already diverted no less than 27 acres of railway land in the centre of Mumbai. . This sort or robbery of public land for the benefit of a few must be unheard of in urban history. The move will severely hit the railways’ project to build new railway terminus in Mumbai, the railway now have to hunt for land for the project.
Another irony is that while the government has spent crores of rupees in finding spaces for parking of cars for motorists, it is robbing public transport of its own, rightful parking space. Can anyone believe this ?
The municipal corporation has created a so called parking authority appointing for its staff several young architects, paying them fat amounts and in the end has nothing to show at all for results. The whole project is misconceived from beginning to end. It is not the job of the civic body to create spaces for car parking simply to suit the interests of the automobile lobby, never mind the disastrous impact on children, robbing them of playing spaces, there are several other victims as well of this exercise. Its job is to promote public transport as per the requirements of the national urban transport policy.
Clearly our authorities with their crazy policy will create more traffic jams, more congestion and pollution and make Mumbai unliveable..
Vidyadhar Date is a senior journalist and author of a book seeking a democratic transport system, controlling the car lobby
