It was a quiet day with the rains pouring off and on, throughout. Saw the pathetic state of Bombay, thanks to the two days of deluge, on television. Pity the people because the municipality of the city is the richest civic organisation in the country and despite having been run by almost every political party, no conceptual thinking has taken place all these years!
The infrastructure is vintage, the drains are heavily clogged, the low lying areas get inundated during every monsoon and one is shown the same miseries that people have to go through, year after year, season after season. Why don't all the concerned authorities sit together and find a lasting solution to the vexed issue? Or is it their strategy to keep the problem alive so that money, in the name of damage repairs, can be continuously drawn into their pockets from the government's coffers?
Was reminded of 26 Jul 2005, when Bombay had gone through a similar ignominy. I was headed for Bombay from New Delhi on work. The flight was above Bombay's airspace at the appointed hour of 1530h, hovered around for about half an hour waiting to be cleared for landing and was finally, diverted to Ahmedabad as the airport was shut down. I remember reaching back at home a trifle before midnight.
What I'm trying to say is that quite a few of the images that were flashed then, came into view all over again over the last couple of days. Ten years down the line and not even an iota of a difference! Where have the resources, that was meant for the transformation of the city as 'India's Shanghai', gone? Aren't the successive governments that ruled the state of Maharashtra responsible for this sorry state of affairs?
Tailpiece.
I was trying to spot at least one difference, in the overall state of affairs, between the battering the city had taken in 2005 and 2015 and finally, got the answer. The city was Bombay in 2005 while it's Mumbai in 2015! And has the change in nomenclature - done with great fanfare - been of any help to reduce the miseries of the monsoon fury? An emphatic No!
Oh.....the games the politicians play!
The infrastructure is vintage, the drains are heavily clogged, the low lying areas get inundated during every monsoon and one is shown the same miseries that people have to go through, year after year, season after season. Why don't all the concerned authorities sit together and find a lasting solution to the vexed issue? Or is it their strategy to keep the problem alive so that money, in the name of damage repairs, can be continuously drawn into their pockets from the government's coffers?
Was reminded of 26 Jul 2005, when Bombay had gone through a similar ignominy. I was headed for Bombay from New Delhi on work. The flight was above Bombay's airspace at the appointed hour of 1530h, hovered around for about half an hour waiting to be cleared for landing and was finally, diverted to Ahmedabad as the airport was shut down. I remember reaching back at home a trifle before midnight.
What I'm trying to say is that quite a few of the images that were flashed then, came into view all over again over the last couple of days. Ten years down the line and not even an iota of a difference! Where have the resources, that was meant for the transformation of the city as 'India's Shanghai', gone? Aren't the successive governments that ruled the state of Maharashtra responsible for this sorry state of affairs?
Tailpiece.
I was trying to spot at least one difference, in the overall state of affairs, between the battering the city had taken in 2005 and 2015 and finally, got the answer. The city was Bombay in 2005 while it's Mumbai in 2015! And has the change in nomenclature - done with great fanfare - been of any help to reduce the miseries of the monsoon fury? An emphatic No!
Oh.....the games the politicians play!
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