Mr Shirish Patel, a well-known figure in urban planning, made an interesting suggestion at a citizens’ meeting earlier this year that we should engage with politicians and bring issues to their attention.
Image: Indian Express
It seemed to be fair enough.
Unfortunately, politicians do know the issues but not all want to act on them.
An activist had brought the violations involved in the Kamala Mill fire to the attention of the BMC and yet it did not act . This also takes care of a point made by Shekhar Krishnan, research scholar , to me that I should follow up my comments on civic issues with the BMC.
At official press conferences the general experience is that if a journalist raises an issue, the response is that if the journalist has a personal issue, it would be attended to soon , don’t bother about public issues. We know what is happening and . What is your problem ? And so on. It is not always like that. Some times the authorities are certainly serious. At public interactions, the politician usually issues a directive – give only concrete suggestions, meaning don’t make complaints. So the point is the authorities are simply not interested in getting to know the truth.
Mr Patel made the suggestion at a meeting convened by the Mumbai Vikas Samiti in Dadar in which the chief of the BMC’s disaster management cell , Mr Narvekar, spoke very confidently about the preparedness of the civic body.
The trouble is the class character of most prominent politicians has changed over the years.They are now in the same hedonist, luxury-loving class as the people they should be asking questions. The central minister Babul Surpriyo said on TV that he went through the list of the Kamala Mill fire victims to check if there was anyone he knew. And the articulate Mr Aditya Thackeray said he might as well have been at the restaurant at Kamala mill which underscores his life style. By the way, he has a bigger task ahead of him now since he is the main spirit behind the civic decision to let people enjoy night life and shopping and eating out by extending their hours This means people are actually going to be more vulnerable if corrective steps are not taken.
If only our architects, civil engineers, food writers speak out on such issues, things will be better. I have so far noticed only one intervention from the gourmet class on the Kamala mill restaurant. Kunal Vijaykar mentioned that there are so many other such sites including Todi mill compound.