Vinod Mathew

Mumbai's business barons are willing to "give back to the city". But most of them would prefer to contribute in a manner that leaves some lasting and material evidence rather than contribute to a Relief Fund.

IT HAS been a while since the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, met the Captains of Industry, at least those headquartered in Mumbai, and made an impassioned plea that "it was time to give back to the city". Left unsaid but pretty much implied was that business houses had all long been drawing on Mumbai for their sustenance, either in material form or by way of human resource.

The business tycoons nodded in agreement and indicated that they would be ready to play ball, provided the Government came up with a game plan. The overriding sentiment expressed by the representatives of major Indian business houses that day was that they would prefer to contribute in a manner that left some material evidence of it rather than give money to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.

The thrust was as much on responsibility of rebuilding as it was on accountability for rebuilding Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra hit by the July 26 deluge. The one thing that the industry captains insisted on was that any rehabilitation plan by the State government be time-bound as inordinate delays would dilute the intensity they felt for rebuilding the city, State, whatever.

A couple of weeks have already gone by and there still is no word from the government as to how it expects the corporate biggies to participate in a tangible manner in the rehabilitation work.

Given that the business barons made a number of suggestions that day about their wish to be allocated geographical spaces so that they can reconstruct buildings that are threatening to fall down, the Government need not get highly creative with its rehabilitation blueprint.

Specific mention was made that day to the rehabilitation work carried out in Gujarat post 2001 earthquake. As the rehabilitation work involved a lot of private-public participation, sometimes taking on the hues of joint ventures, the business houses said they would be happy to follow the Gujarat pattern.

One businessman even went to the extent of suggesting that Maharashtra should work on the Gujarat rehab model as at least a handful of industry houses with base in Mumbai had actively participated in rebuilding parts of Bhuj, Anjar, Bachau, Rapar and Gandhidham.

With 109 buildings in South Mumbai declared as dangerous to live in, and nearly 20,000 buildings labelled dilapidated and requiring repairs, the corporates may not have to look any further.

Thus, if the Government were to draw on the Gujarat model and allow parts of the city to be `adopted', as villages and towns were after the Republic Day temblor of 2001, soon enough one may get to see various parts of Mumbai getting carved up among business houses as part of the State rehabilitation plan.

As nothing comes free, all the more so when corporate houses are in the reckoning, wont as they are in saying that charity is not their cup of tea, city dwellers should not get worked up when the pound of flesh gets claimed. Thus, as in the case of premier educational institutes such as the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad tapping corporates for sponsorship and in return getting to rename many of the students wings and aisles after business houses, South Mumbai streets could soon sport new names.

This could well lead to dilapidated areas such as Nul Bazaar, some 14 gullies in Khetwadi, Body Guard Lane of Tardoe and so on getting renamed along the lines of Tata Rasta, Reliance Gully, Essar Chowk and Hinduja Naka. All this, if the Industries Department of the State Government does get around to coming out with a city/state redevelopment plan in the near future.

In a country where renaming of roads and bridges is a near full time occupation often leading to high degrees of politicisation, rebuilding Mumbai could be fraught with danger of the nomenclature kind.

The Mumbai Makeover could actually get going if the State government seized this opportunity and starts cracking the whip on such issues as illegal shanties and reclaiming land thus lost. There is also the issue of dredging the rivers Mithi and Dahisar and giving them back a semblance of what the rivers used to look like some decades ago.

Easier said than done. It is much easier to ban plastic than removing the plastic-topped shanties as the latter are also vote banks.

Meanwhile, old buildings continue to fall in the city and residents continue to play footsie when asked to move out, citing once excuse or the other. Unlike plastic, they too constitute vote banks, though opposed allegiance from the shanty dwellers.

The Government needs to take a call — the captains of industry are waiting.

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