A directly elected mayor with more power should be appointed in Mumbai. Quick decisions about the city’s development can be taken only when you invest complete authority on one person or agency. A directly elected mayor would be perfect for a city like this, where there are multiple agencies delaying the decision-making process - Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London. He became the Mayor on the creation of the post in 2000 and was re-elected in June 2004

Workers fix fancy signs and work on new-age lifts for the physically challenged in a subway outside the glitzy, new Metro Adlabs Cinema at Marine Lines in Mumbai’s old colonial heart. Outside, evening filmgoers struggle across the street as car-horns blare at them and drivers play a dangerous avoid-the-pedestrian game. It will be another month before pedestrians can take the subway. But what’s another month when you’ve waited five years?

This Rs 19-crore subway is part of the officiously called Pedestrian Grade Separation Scheme. Launched in 2002, the scheme aimed to make it safer — and easier — to cross streets, through a series of 27 subways and foot overbridges.

It is perhaps the simplest component of the Rs 4,500-crore Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP-I), which envisions bridges, flyovers, subways, new railway stations, trains and dedicated bus lanes across our booming city of over 14 million. The Metro subway is the only project of the 27 to have left the drawing board.

Here’s why. For five years, the civic body and traffic police have been squabbling over traffic arrangements for roads that would need to be blocked or closed while work is underway. They have also been trying — and failing — to get various authorities from state-run telecommunications firm MTNL to the private Reliance Infocomm to divert utility cables like telephone and power lines. They’ve even been struggling unsuccessfully to get their own water supply and storm water drain departments to close off the water mains and sewer lines that crisscross the city underground.

Subways, like the one at Metro, are now likely to be dropped from the transport project.
• Meanwhile, in the same time, Shanghai has built a 30-km track for its new high-speed, magnetic-levitation trains.
• Bogotá, the capital of the Colombia, has put in place a world-class bus system with dedicated lanes and 300 km of cycle tracks. It has decongested roads and brought down pollution levels in this South American megacity (population: 6.8 million).
• São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and home to 17 million, stripped off all advertising hoardings despite hardline opposition from businesses — within a year.
Shanghai, Bogotá, São Paulo — they had the funds. So do we.
They had a plan. So do we.

Here’s the main difference: They have just one destination for every civic grievance — a directly elected mayor or president, whose political future depends on whether he can keep his city running smoothly, whether he can deliver on promises and plans.

From London to Johannesburg

Over the last 10 years, global cities from London to Johannesburg have transformed the largely decorative post of the First Citizen into one of real responsibility.

Experts believe it is no coincidence that they then managed to step much more quickly and with much less fuss into the 21st century.
Even the central think tank Administrative Reforms Committee (ARC) recommended, in a report submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last month, that a directly elected mayor be appointed through popular mandate to run the nation’s cities — something citizens’ groups and even some politicians have been asking for years.

“Mumbai is perhaps the only megacity in the world whose makeover is being implemented by a dozen agencies as varied as the Indian Railways and the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation,” said former civic chief V. Ranganathan. “Each of these authorities is answerable to a different boss, making coordination chaotic and, in some cases, virtually impossible.”
Added O.P. Mathur of National Institute of Public Finance and Policy: “We need to think about better city governance. If not a directly elected mayor, then at least someone with more executive power who can lead the city, assisted by a civic commissioner who implements the decisions of the corporation professionally.”

So, who is in charge of Mumbai’s makeover?

The dozen parallel civic and state agencies overseeing the various projects make Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh the de facto head. But he is also answerable to 105 million others across a vast territory that makes up India’s third-largest state (if it were to be a country, Maharashtra would be the world’s 12th largest, by population). To his credit, Deshmukh has been much more actively involved in the development of the megalopolis — perhaps an indication of the rising power of the urban mandate. But while he struggles to untie the red tape and solve the squabbles bogging down big-ticket projects like the Bandra-Worli sealink and the Mumbai Metro, the little ones — the subways, new railway booking offices and car parks — remain empty shells by excavated roadsides.

Consider this. Our city has committed Rs 43,000 crore to big-ticket infrastructure projects over the last four years. Only projects worth Rs 10,809 crore have taken off — and less than half the funds, around Rs 3,000 crore, has been spent on the proposed sea bridges, roads and new trains and buses.
“It is not funding that is holding up our projects… it is a function of our governance deficits — poor planning and cost and time overruns make approvals, coordination and land acquisition virtually impossible,” said a senior bureaucrat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

For one of the three fastest-growing cities in the world, Mumbai can ill afford such a poor track record. “We have flagged this to the state government on several occasions,” said Hubert Nove Josserand, senior transportation planner with World Bank. “But coordination issues have not been resolved. It has delayed MUTP. On the ground, there are way too many agencies. Taking them together, getting clearances on time and coordination are not easy.”
Meanwhile, outside Dadar station, a garbage dump, scores of illegal vendors and honking taxis pose a daily obstacle race to the 3.5 lakh people who pass through every day.

In a few months, the civic body should have completed a skywalk, subway, new booking offices, taxi stands and parking spaces under the Station Area Traffic Improvement Scheme — another component of MUTP, launched four years ago. The plans never left the drawing board.

All our dreams of a world-class Mumbai hinge on the grand makeover plan formulated in 2002-03. But poor planning and coordination are costing you more money, and a lot more time. A new form of governance, like a directly elected mayor with real powers, could mean easier coordination and quicker delivery. And it would certainly help to have one person accountable.

Is this enough?

Problem 1: Who will bell the cat? There is no political will to change the system. For the state government, a directly elected mayor would mean handing over the reigns of the financial hub to a parallel power centre. This is one of the reasons that successive Chief Ministers have not wanted powerful mayors for the city. During Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister, there was a serious move to appoint a retired bureaucrat Ram Pradhan as minister for Mumbai. However, this was opposed by the then ruling state Congress politicians.

Problem 2: Going so s-l-o-w
The central think tank has woken up to the chaos in the administration of mega cities. A recent report by the Administrative Reforms Committee (ARC) submitted to the Prime Minister has called for a directly elected mayor for cities. However, ARC recommendations are implemented way too slow.
At the state level, planners have been deliberating over setting up of a unified transport authority, suggested by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over a year ago. Though there is nothing concrete on paper, the plan has already run into stiff opposition. Politicians on the governing body of BEST have opposed the plan as they say it will undermine the transport body’s authority.

The buck stops here

Vilasrao Deshmukh, Chief Minister, Maharashtra

It’s been four years since the Vision Mumbai project was inaugurated. The makeover seems to be faltering now due to delays, largely a result of bad governance and lack of coordination among agencies.
It’s true. There are too many agencies and that creates problems. But I am personally taking reviews of each project. For the first time, the central government has given grants for Mumbai. Things are changing. The makeover will happen. It’s also that, in Mumbai, infrastructure will always fall short of our requirement.

Why not at least set up a unified transport authority on a priority basis?
Even that is not easy. We will need a model that can be replicated and works in a city like ours. Everyone has ideas but it is difficult to implement them.

Many people feel a single authority like a mayor could improve governance because s/he would be accountable to the people…
No (shrugs). Our political system is different. Here, the civic body’s standing committee chairman is more powerful than a mayor. The mayor has little power. The mayor-in-council method was tried out in 1999; it didn’t work.

How they did it

London
In 2000, London, a city of 7.5 million, opted for a directly elected mayor marking a change in its 2,000-year-old history. The elected mayor, with the separately elected London Assembly, together make up the Greater London Authority. The mayor is responsible for the city’s transport, planning, development and economic growth while the Assembly plays a supervisory role. London, under Ken Livingstone’s leadership, was the first city to introduce a congestion charge. The model is being replicated across the world, from New York to Amsterdam.

Johannesburg
Like Mumbai, South Africa’s capital, home to 3.2 million, had a largely decorative mayoral post. In 1999, citizens opted for a directly elected mayor assisted by a 10-member city council. In 2002, the city appointed a professional post of city manager to execute the decisions and policies cleared by the council. The city has 10 utilities, which, like the BEST, are run as companies. The executive mayor takes ultimate responsibility for the city.

Mexico
In 1997, Mexico City — the world’s largest at 18 million — decided to switch from a governor appointed by the central government to a directly elected mayor. The mayor is assisted by a legislative assembly, which helps form policies. Today, the city has financial and administrative autonomy, making it easier to implement reforms like ushering in environmental laws and curbing pollution, without the central government’s interference.

Mumbai
Home to over 14 million, our city experimented with a mayor-in-council system during the 1995-99 Sena-BJP rule. The council, set up by then chief minister Manohar Joshi, had chairpersons of crucial committees as members, along with a representative from the Opposition. Nandu Satam became the first mayor to lead the mayor-in-council. However, the Sena-BJP government scrapped it later as allegations of corruption and lack of transparency dogged the new system.

Incredible but true...

The tangles of red tape

* The ambitious World Bank-aided Rs 4,500 crore Mumbai Urban Transport Project is only half done. The 2008 deadline has been pushed to December 2009 as many projects like the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road and the purchase of new rakes are pending. Projects like station improvements have not even started.

* The second phase of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project hopes to reduce congestion on nine-car trains from 3,000 to 2,500 per train and improve suburban rail travel. The Railways and the state government are squabbling over the state’s contribution to the project, which is currently Rs 650 crore. The Railways is also not keen to borrow money from agencies like the World Bank as suggested by the state. Announced in February, it still hasn’t taken off.

* The Bandra-Worli sealink deadline has been revised yet again, to December 2008. Here the financial squabble is between contractor Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) and implementing agency MSRDC, with the chief minister acting as arbiter. The delay has resulted in cost overruns of Rs 656 crore to the entire project.

* The quick-win Marine Drive beautification project is stuck between residents’ groups, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and the municipal corporation.

* The Rs 1,400-crore Mithi River Development Project also saw a revised deadline from 2008 to 2010. The new deadline seems unrealistic since work now is at a standstill. The civic body is waiting for MMRDA to resettle the encroachments along the river banks. The MMRDA is waiting for the Collector’s office to identify the ‘legal’ project-affected persons. The Centre also has refused to give it funds under the urban renewal mission because “it is a river” and not a drain.

Email ketaki.ghoge@hindustantimes.com