Shanghai - To be or not to be that is the Question

Mumbai, the economic capital of India is said to be the dream city. The city that never sleeps, fulfills the dreams of the hard working aspirants who hunt for success. It has a history of around 2000 years; where from Mauryas to Satavahanas and Raja Bhimdev to the Gujrat Sultanate all have ruled this land. But the city actually saw some make lift was under the British rule. Since then it has grown from the seven islands to a financial hub of the country.

A few years back the State Government of Maharashtra declared their agenda where the focus was to transform Mumbai into a world class city with the state of art infrastructure similar that to the Chinese booming city of Shanghai, but what we see is the downward curve where the development looks questioning. Shanghai was selected on the grounds that it has topography and geography that is similar to Mumbai, wide coastal area was one of the distinct features. One more thing common for these cities was the high population that was going up day by day. China announced to make Shanghai a dream place to live and they did it with ease. Now if you see this city which is home to more than 20 million people has one of the best transport, infrastructure, residential complexes, utilities which are second to none in the world. And when it was announced Mumbai will go with the same path, got some smile on the faces of the city dwellers. But looking at the journey so far in the last decade or so it looks like it is heading to a destination no where.

The first thing on the Govt. agenda was to speed up the transport facility within the city and in came the projects like Metro rail, Mono rail and freeways. To talk about Metro it was all started in the year 2003 where the planning phase began. The foundation stone was led in 2006 and the actual work was started in the year 2008 and still going on and on, expected to be ready by 2012. And during this space of time what the Mumbaities have seen - long bustling traffic, polluted air, high noise pollution and loosing tons of hours that they spend traveling. "Bear with us for the better tomorrow" the board reads at the construction sites. We just hope the future doesn’t turn out to be our past and we are still bearing with it. The same story is with Bandra Worli Sea Link; the dream project began in year 1999 and took almost 10 years (to be precise) to complete. It was suppose to be a 5 years long project costing 300 Crores INR, ended up 10 years with INR 1600 Crores. The estimated traffic flow in 1999 has gone up drastically in the last 12 years, again putting up a question will this bridge live up to the expectations in the near future. Mono has gone the same way, the mirror of our government's capabilities, but still can be considered as one of the few projects that is looking good enough to be ready on time (I am just hoping not sure). Overall city looks like a place that is dug everyday for some development, leaving behind only the thought of development and inhabitants into complete disarray.

The govt needs to take complete measures to ensure these projects are completed soon because the city was better before they started and we want to see some peaceful commutation.And all of this is part of India, the country that is looking to compete with the Super powers of the world; one of the booming economies in the world looks a sub standard nation when it comes to quality infrastructure. We stand high when we talk about the Nation’s ranking in terms of GDP (Currently we are 4th in the world according to GDP Purchasing Power Parity), but when we see what lies beneath is darkness of poverty, unemployment, corruption, poor transport facilities and lack of basic health standards. And when we talk about Mumbai the intensity of this question goes high that Global City of India cannot facilitate smooth urban transport. Shanghai to be or not to be that is the Question?????????????