motorbike

The new Cabs introduced this week have to be welcomed. These are air-conditioned, have electronic meters and they can be summoned by tele. You do not need to stand at the kerb and wave, you can just use your and they will be at your doorstep. Let's see???

junaid

I m sure that people will joy their trip with these cabs.... Cars like Indigo Marina, Maruti Esteem, Lancer and even Innova will be available in the form of Cabs. However, the cabs will have a flag down fare of Rs 15 compared to Rs 13 for normal taxis.

manoj

More than a month ago, our newspapers were full of headlines saying “Luxury sedan cabs to hit city roads today”. The stories flashed pictures of a brand new Lancer painted a bright canary yellow, with TAXI emblazoned on a panel on top, posing gloatingly next to a herd of ‘kaala peelas’, the black and yellow Padminis which bang around the city today.

The initial fleet of 30 cars was to go up to 300 by the first week of November and 1000 by the end of December. Well, here we are in the last stretch of November and I know no one who has sat in one of these swank cabs. And I have yet to meet anyone who has even seen one of them. Is this, then, one of the usual Mumbai things, which is to equate announcement with action? Which means that once you have announced that something is being done, it’s equal to it being done. QED.

Let me give you two recent examples of this syndrome. This newspaper’s front page of May 16th carried an important bit of news: “Suburban commuters can expect smooth sail to work”. The story was about the go-ahead for a ferry service to ply between Borivili and Nariman Point, stopping en route at Marve, Versova, Juhu and Bandra. If you had read the announcement, you would have said, “Gosh, what a good idea! Wonder why no one thought of it before.”

But of course they did. In fact, various entrepreneurs have got together at various times to suggest various schemes with the very same end in view. Yet here was a senior government official announcing that work on jetties and terminal buildings at the six sites “will begin soon”, with the air of someone talking of a brand new scheme. Perhaps officials have short memories, or perhaps they get transferred every couple of years so no one remembers that we have been here before.

The second example comes from a newspaper report six weeks ago. “BMC at work to make Senapati Bapat Marg Mumbai’s best road”. The report stated that the road, commonly called Tulsi Pipe Road, had been earmarked for a complete makeover. Well, I was on Tulsi Pipe Road today. At the non-rush hour of 1 pm, it took me 35 minutes by car from Haji Ali junction to a building in the Phoenix Mills compound. First there was a pile up on the Mahalaxmi bridge, then the usual chaos at the High Street Phoenix Mall. It had been announced that “Illegal hutments, hawkers, will go; they will soon be replaced by footpaths, green patches and flower beds.”

What I saw was this: yes, there were pavements, but they had been taken over. Not by hutments, but by pucca construction, some complete with rolling shutters. The green patches were provided by green jerry cans of water and the occasional green tarpaulin while the flower beds were on the quilts of men and women sleeping on the pavements. But why should I be surprised? After all, we have been here before as well.

The wonder is that we aren’t more cynical. That each time an announcement is made, a little hope actually flutters in our hearts. Of course, the announcements concern projects which are practical, common-sensical and do-able. If they were futuristic or hi-tech or fanciful, we would disbelieve them. But who wouldn’t like to believe that Mumbai’s creaky, beat-up taxis should be replaced by air-conditioned new vehicles? And who would disbelieve a project which uses Mumbai’s vast coastline to provide an alternative form of transport?

Beyond the announcements, the reality is vastly different. The traffic jam that held me up at Mahalaxmi was caused by a single truck parked on the road. The Phoenix Mill jam was due to taxis parked on a ‘No Waiting’ stretch, which reduced a two lane road to a single one. The absence of new yellow cabs is probably due to the campaign mounted by the black and yellow taximen’s union. The slums on footpaths have too many godfathers to protect them, while the jetties for waterways don’t get made because so many bureaucratic hurdles are placed in the way that entrepreneurs decide to try their luck elsewhere.

Announcements are easy to make; to go beyond them needs discipline, continuous monitoring and a concentrated effort of will. Announcements get you lots of media attention; the slow process of implementation is always covered by a cloak of obscurity. One is glamorous; the other a hard grind.

Author: Anil Dharker
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