When I look forword the picture of mumbai in 2020 is very much horible if there is continued unplanned growth of mumbai like now.
Just take example of suburban railway. It is so called life line of mumbai.Why should not be? When you want to travel from distant suburb like Mulund or Borivali,it takes minimum 1.30 to 2 hours to travel to C.S.T. or Churchgate if there is moderate traffic.Even if we go by any of the two expresss highways.We have to travel by local trains if we want to cut travel time,even if we bare luxurious car.This is situation of suburb,not to mention anything about extended suburb like kalyan,where there is no direct roadway at all. Kalyan is totally isolated from Mumbai if we exclude the cental railway suburban transport. Want to mention that in the flood of 26th July,the people of Dombivali-Kalyan suffered a lot.Now state government is planning to connect Thane-Dombivali-Kalyan by roadway parallel to railway track.Better late than never-but not to be such late that we have to suffer another 26th July.
Its such a sadistic thing that could be done to the fellow Indian when on the other hand you say 'All Indians are my brothers and sisters'. If you see the scene of demolition and the pain & grief that people have when they are left homeless then I am sure you would really feel bad about it.. Why to let them settle there at the first place? Just they are the good source of vote bank... And when you let them settle and no action been taken against it now you demolish their dwellings and bring them on roads! USE AND THROW ! There are many places in Mumbai I think could be used to rehabilitate them but they are never done.. Probably that may not be helping enough to fill up their pockets !!! These poor people are the backbone of Mumbai everybody knows about it... But Still we see this backbone being hurt all the time ! After all you are going to use these people to convert Mumbai to Singapore right !
More action is needed on the ground that on releasing surveys about what Mumbai will look like in 2010, 2015 or 2020 and selling visions of future living!
Further, most of the projects are sadly those benefititing the south Mumbai. Those who are out of these benefit-net are not powerful enough to influence decision making. Unless the state decision making power is freed from the clutches of the builders and developers and international consultants, you cannot hope for much.
Substantial anbd immediate relief can be given to the 8 lakh of people who travel daily to and from their work places spending over one and half hours each way travelling like sardines. If any film maker does a short film of the travails of the train travellers it will not only shame the country but will also mean the loss of votes at the hustings.
Instead of talking of bullet trains and TVG bullet train service to Dlehi in six hours, think of laying a pair of slow lines from Andheri to Malad in the first instance, instead of trains terminating at Andheri make them terminate at Goregaon. Similar measures in CR also needed.
the place called diwa near dombivli has been lying empty for the last 30/40 yrs now. it is still the same like it was in aap ki kasam song ( zindagi ke safar main..) there has been no progress there whatsoever.it is a junction place which is accessible to goa, mumbai & konkan but still there is nothing much happening there. why not develop it & move some administrative offices to there so that rush can be reduced to some extent.
We want innovativeness to protect mumbai & help it develop. money will never be a problem for mumbai & in 2005 if we are thinking of a vision 2020 for mumbai it means over the years we have failed miserably in maintaining this metro because classifying it as a metro meant it shud be developed fast but now the story seems to be diff.
also please note all suburban commuters are tired of listening to indian railways bhashan of being the largest carrier of passenger traffic. what we want to hear now is Indian railways is the largest & safest & quickest carrier of passenger traffic & yes ofcourse add to it " in humane conditions "
Thanks & B Rgds, Srinath Dombivlikar in KL,Malaysia
Either some of the government offices or other offices must be moved to the suburbs or timings changed or more trains shud be provided.More trains can be provided by running trains on more tracks. instaed of running trains on 2 up tracks run them on 3 tracks & ur train output goes up by 50%.This has to be done for only 3/4 hrs so it is not an issue to figure out how it has to be done.escalators at all major stations like kalyan,dombivli, dadar, thane, kurla, byculla, VT, andheri,borivali, etc.. MUST be provided so that time spent by people at station is minimum & thus rush is less on the station. deaths due to track crossing will also be reduced by doing this.
Innovativeness in drawing time tables of trains is a must. why not ask a group of IIM guys to do their case study on this subject ?? get help from IIT guys for operation research !! some of the things that can be done are - a) start direct trains like kalyan, dombivli, dadar, CST.rush will be less. b) next train will be kalyan, domb, ghatkopar, dadar, CST c) kalyan domb thane dadar CST
more locals must start from kalyan, domb, ambarnath, b'pur etc.. during peak hours. locals must also start regularly from kurla
2 hrs a day saved means more time with family & more creative work for atleast the creative minded which will add to the positives of the city.options of flying from Ambarnath/badlapur to Mumbai must also be explored.there may be people who want to save time & are ready to dish out 1000 bucks more a month.depending on the turnout things have to be planned.initiatives must be provided to attract people to come & stay in the suburbs but for that they will expect good infrastructure benefits which i am sure if we are innovative it can be resolved. other important thing to note is the ability of the city to say no to outsiders but there shud be a limit to it. the population of kalva has increased almost 3 folds in the last 5 years & it is climbing every day. this has to be controlled for mumbai's sake or the repurcussions will be horrendous. there are 4 tracks ( 2 going towards mumbai & 2 out of mumbai ) but what i fail to understand is during peak hours in mumbai when a common man is suffering like hell inside a train the trains on the other 2 tracks go empty.western railways donot face it as much as central railways does so why doesn't central railways run 3 lines during peak hrs ?
Mumbai cannot be developed unless suburbs like thane, kalyan, dombivli, badlapur, ambarnath, borivali, vasai, dahisar are developed. but today the situation is such that a manager of a company who has desires of driving to work in company cars cannot think of settling down in kalyan even if his roots are from kalyan. the distance from kalyan to mumbai is just 50 kms but still this problem exists. why because there is no straight road from kalyan to mumbai & even if it is there it takes over 1.5 hrs to reach mumbai.from ambarnath , badlapur, dobivli etc it takes even longer. this ensures that all ambitious managers move out of suburbs to thane, mulund or chembur to fullfill their dreams.which leaves the city crowded & the suburbs vacant. we need a staright road from mumbai to karjat/kasara & vasai & good bus services so that people can take it & thus reduce the rush on the trainswhich at the moment are the only mode of transport for the suburban people on the central line.a road travel from karjat/kasara to mumbai will be say 120 kms which is 2 hrs max if the roads are wide enough which reduces the travel time from current 3.25 hrs to 2 hrs or even 2.25 hrs ( a full hour saved !! )
Sometime ago just out of curiosity i had written to the President of India APJ abdul kalam abt some ideas that i had in mind. I would share it with you here.. driving hawkers away will be criminal atleast in mumbai & its suburb. what is needed is to give them good places to work from which will improve to the cleanliness of the whole city. there are 3.2 lakh hawkers & some 32 cities in mumbai's suburbs which means each place has got around 10000 hawkers. to be on safer side lets say there are 15000 hawkers in each city. let us plan a 4 storied building which can house 1000 of these hawkers so we need 15 such buildings. these buildings shud have escalators which will make it easy for people to move around. the building shud be categorised based on products sold.hawkers will pay an annual fee ( no issues I guess as they are anyways paying the haftas !! )towards maintenance of the building. 15 such buildings on either side of the railway stations ( east & west ) will help people to shop at their door steps & also ensure cleanliness of the whole city. this takes care of cleanliness, max utilization of roads by traffic & also getting all things from one place.
