Mumbai: A city that witnesses potholes every monsoon and is a grim picture of civic apathy has surprisingly obtained the third spot out of 111, in the living index issued by the union government, on Monday. According to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, Mumbai is ahead of New Delhi, which has ranked 65th on the list. Rampur in Uttar Pradesh is at the bottom of the rankings. Pune and Navi Mumbai pipped Greater Mumbai for the first and second slots, while Thane ranked sixth.
Vijay Singhal, the Additional Municipal Commissioner of BMC of Mumbai stated, they had submitted data on the existing facilities provided to the citizens — sewage, garbage collection, roads, health facilities, infrastructure and others.
The survey was conducted based on four parameters — social, institutional, economic and physical. The parameters include mainly unemployment in economic category, physical includes road, transportation and other facilities.
However, this ranking has not gone down well with activists, who blame the civic body for their failure to provide good facilities. “The city is no more liveable as the roads are bad, there are traffic jams everywhere, incidents of fire are being reported on a daily basis and still they claim the city is liveable? This is a joke in in itself,” said Nikhil Desai, an activist based in Matunga.
Activists reminded the BMC of the biggest tragedy that shamed the city. On August 29, 2017, a renowned gastroenterologist, Deepak Amarapurkar, fell into an open manhole and his body was found after two days. Even after that, similar accidents have occurred. Deaths due to potholes have become routine in Mumbai. Some also drew to attention the nexus between civic officials, restaurant and pub owners, which led to a fire in a pub at Kamala Mills on December 29, in which 14 persons died.
Godfrey Pimenta has alleged the living index is a fake certificate given on the basis of ‘fudged records’. “The data should reflect the complaints on bad roads, failure to desilt nullahs and the corruption. Astonishingly, BMC has got first rank in open space criteria, when it has failed to provide four square metres that every individual needs. This ranking is a way of fooling citizens,” said Pimenta.
Singhal added they submitted report to the centre for ease-of-living initiative in April and the results have been declared now. He added that in some criteria like governance, the civic body has secured low marks and all possible efforts will be made to improve performance in those aspects.