gfiles Magazine November Issue 2011

FIRST STIRRINGS

jamsheed g kanga

 

‘Politicians have let down Mumbai’

As a tough, straightforward Parsi administrator, Jamsheed G Kanga had the guts to tell the Shiv Sena leaders newly elected to power in the BMC to learn the rules of the game. During the 1971-73 drought he took on veteran socialist party leader and trade union firebrand George Fernandes

 

I am from the 1956 batch that saw the likes of DM Sukhthankar, Sadashiv S Tinaikar and Naresh Chandra, who was Ambassador to the US, Cabinet Secretary and later Governor of Gujarat. It was a rare coincidence of sorts that for about eight to nine years after Sukhthankar, I became the BMC Municipal Commissioner, followed by Tinaikar, all from the same batch.

 

I spent my training period (1957-61) in Pune and later in Satara where I also briefly served as the District Collector as well. In 1961, the concept of Zilla Parishads was introduced in Maharashtra and I was appointed the administrator (the post later came to be known as Chief Executive Officer). I held charge of two districts, Parbhani and Wardha. After the first elections were held, I assumed charge as CEO, Wardha.

 

Between 1965-67, I was Controller of Rationing. In those days, statutory rationing had been introduced. In 1965, there was acute food shortage in Mumbai and the rest of the State. The government had to introduce Statutory Rationing. The US gave wheat and foodgrains under the PL 480 scheme. The cities had lots of purchasing power whereas the villages were expected to sustain themselves on their own resources.

 

The policy was to control the foodgrain rationing in the cities. No food grain was allowed to be shipped out of the cities so as to ensure that the villages managed to sustain themselves. The government had to do a sort of census of the Mumbai population. People tried to indulge in cheating by including extended family members and bogus names. So we had to verify each person and in 1965 the government issued cards to the then 60 lakh population of Mumbai. The government had to ensure that Public Distribution Shops were opened in all the areas of the city.

 

During my stint as CEO of the Wardha ZP, the Planning Commission had come up with the Wardha Plan in association with Dhananjay Gadgil of the Gokhale Institute of Economics, Pune. It was Mahatma Gandhi’s chosen district and we came up with a model for planning things from ground level. We studied the best agricultural practices and other models of manufacturing. What we did was to explain to the people and in turn got their feedback and then the project was put out for implementation.

In 1972, during my stint as District Collector, Pune, the city witnessed its worst communal riot. The minority community was in no mood to trust the impartiality of the Police Commissioner, so it approached the then Governor, Ali Yavar Jung, and wanted the District Magistrate to take charge. The Chief Minister called me up and asked me to take charge of the law and order situation. Going by the law, I could not assume charge as District Magistrate as the Police Commissioner was very much in the post. So a middle path was chosen and it was decided that the Police Commissioner and I would travel together in the riot-hit areas. The impression gained was that the decisions were being taken jointly and in a fair manner.

 

Touring Pune district, I came across two men yoked to a plough, ploughing the field. A photographer was taking their pictures.

 

FROM 1971-73, I was District Collector, Pune. For three years the rains had failed in the State. The drought had forced more than three to four lakhs of people on to the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS), which was pioneered by Maharashtra. The District Collectors were given the power to sanction works. Chief Minister Vasantrao Naik had given the collectors the go-ahead but had also asked us to ensure that no deaths took place.

 

The impact of the drought was so severe that even farmers who owned 30 to 40 acres of land queued up for work under the EGS as no grain grew in those three years. Works were planned and were started in 200-odd sites in the taluka as it was mandatory that every village had to be covered, work had to be provided within a 5-km radius of the village and people had to be fed nutritious food. In those days, people used to come in large numbers to seek work and projects like building roads to villages, percolation tanks and so on were easily accomplished as there was no dearth of manpower.

 

After the drought was over, since a large number of cattle had died, the government came up with a loan scheme to provide farmers with livestock. One day, as I was on a tour of Pune district, I came across two men yoked to a plough and ploughing the field. A photographer was taking their pictures. The Opposition in those days was quick to point out the inadequacies of the ruling party.

 

I got down and confronted George Fernandes, who was then with the Praja Socialist Party (PSP). Veteran socialist leader SM Joshi was their leader. Fernandes argued that the government had failed to protect the farmer and provide him with bullocks to plough the field. I vehemently protested and asked Fernandes to accompany me to the place where all these things were happening, which he could not. Thus the George Fernandes hoax was exposed. Years later, a writer in The Illustrated Weekly of India used the same picture for representation purpose to narrate what could happen if we failed to do our water management properly.

 

In 1983, the State government superseded the BMC. Initially it was Sukhthankar who was the administrator and later, after the polls were held in 1984, I became the Municipal Commissioner. The Sena was new to power and as soon as it came to power it began to think that it could do whatever it wanted. Chhagan Bhujbal was the Mayor. Under the BMC Act, the Mayor has no real authority. The power actually lies with the general body, the various committees like the Standing Committee, Improvements Committee, Works Committee, and the Municipal Commissioner. Each of these committees is independent of the others. Initially, the Sena greenhorns thought they could do anything after assuming power. Then I had to ask senior Sena leaders like Manohar Joshi and others who had been Mayors in the past to educate the newly-elected Sena corporators on the committee system and how they could get their work done through the committees.

 

The Mumbai Metro has not been properly planned. Land prices shot up as builders bought up all the open spaces.

 

The functioning of the BMC was quite different from the normal street-style administration that the Sena was known for. The role of the Municipal Commissioner is very much like a housewife’s. Like she cannot antagonize the maid servant, sweeper and so on, the Municipal Commissioner too cannot antagonize the corporators as he has to depend upon them for their support in getting the funds approved so that he can run the city administration. Many Municipal Commissioners have done many irregular things but in my personal experience, if you are tough and straightforward with them then they dare not take you for granted. Mumbai was once known to be the best planned city. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) was meant to cater to the development of the Mumbai metropolitan region that extended beyond Mumbai and covered satellite towns like Kalyan, Bhiwandi and others.

 

Planning was expected to be done by the BMC which abdicated its responsibility as it did not have the requisite machinery to do so, thus paving the way for the State government- controlled MMRDA to take over the planning part.

 

The role of the BMC has been diluted to a great extent. The Development Plan of Mumbai for 1981 to 2010 which Sukhthankar drew up in the 1980s is now being revised. The plan we drew up took into consideration the aspect of land use. How to utilize available land and at the same time provide facilities to the people while anticipating future growth of population. Suburbs of Mumbai like Mulund and Borivali at that point of time were growing and we had to cater to their civic needs like schools, hospitals, playgrounds and so on.

 

Conceptual planning or planning while taking into account the future growth of the city and its population has never been done. Now they have appointed a Singapore based consultant to draw up a development plan for the next 50 years for Mumbai. Today the government is changing the Mumbai development plan, allowing more Floor Space Index (FSI) without having the capacity to manage plans.

 

Without water, without proper roads or civic infrastructure, this permission for increased FSI is going to force existing people to surrender their open space to people migrating in the future to spaces earmarked originally for them. The government is using FSI as a tool to make money. During my career days, the system was not so corrupt and politicians were more or less clean. You could give unbiased opinion without fear of being penalized. Today, if you do not give the opinion as desired by the politician, you are penalized.

 

This Mumbai Metro has also not been properly planned. Even before the Mumbai Metro was to come up, land prices at the designated places shot up, builders bought up all the land that was meant for restaurants and open spaces. Skywalks is another example of a knee-jerk reaction to the impending crisis. They were haphazardly planned, hardly any of them are being fully used today by the people. Mumbai has the lowest per capita open space in the world, it is just 0.3 per 1,000 people, whereas New York has a ratio of 14 and London 20.

 

IN the 0.3 the authorities have now included traffic parking lots as well. Open space meant for recreational purposes is being given to clubs. Planning in Mumbai has failed, it has to be made to succeed. Pressure on the Mumbai Island City district is less as people are migrating to suburbs, rendering hospitals and schools surplus. However, the pressure on traffic is tremendous.

 

I once attended a World Bank seminar on city infrastructure and one of the photographs showed the Municipal Commissioner seated in the lawn of his palatial bungalow while below you could see the Gamadia Hill slums. So they asked me, is this the case in Mumbai? People in the West do not realize the kind of compulsions that we face in our administration. So I asked them as to what would have happened if more than 300 people came in daily and settled in Washington – all the parks would have been occupied and there would be no open space left.

 

The State government is controlled by the legislature. The politicians from outside Mumbai are not interested in the city. For them you come to Mumbai just to make money. The guardian Minister for Mumbai, Jayant Patil, is from Sangli. The Shiv Sena, though it has been a Mumbai-centric party, has done very little for the city.

 

Before my retirement in 1991, I could have become the Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir. But I wanted to take some leave before I could join. Between 1988-91 I was the Chairman and Managing Director of ECGCI and retired as Secretary in the Department of Commerce, Government of India. The corporation has 35 branches all over India and bails out exporters who have insurance policies and export to unstable regions or countries in the world. g

 

-As told to Prashant Hamine