P Velrasu: ‘We want to transform Mumbai into a world-class, visually appealing city’

The BMC Budget is broadly an independent exercise. Unless and until there is any major issue that needs to be considered, no such direction comes from the government. The government’s idea is to make Mumbai a world-class as well as a visually appealing city. So, this year, we got specific directions towards driving countermeasures for mitigating air pollution and strengthening the school and educational infrastructure. But to make Mumbai a world-class city, our continuous thrust is towards infrastructure development. So, this year, the main focus is on strengthening the physical infrastructure. If you compare this year’s Budget, with that of five years ago, you will see funds being allocated to roads, bridges, storm-water drains (SWDs) and Coastal Road have increased three times. Alongside this, other areas like hospitals, fire brigade, gardens have seen adequate proportion of monetary allocations.

This year we haven’t seen any new big-ticket infrastructure project announced in the budget. Why?

New announcements made this year involved policies towards mitigating air pollution and empowering the marginal sections of society and self-help groups. Therefore, under the planning department, several new schemes amounting to Rs 250 crore have been introduced in the Budget.

We have given serious focus towards concretising the roads and we have given work orders above Rs 6,000 crore just for road works, which is also the highest fund allocated to this department in past several years. For Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) we have allocated Rs 1,200 crore. While this is an ongoing project, it is expected to reach the final stage this year. Besides, token provision has been made for certain projects that might have not been explicitly stated in the Budget but will be taken up this year. For example, the second phase of the Coastal Road that will connect Versova with Dahisar. We will also create a new arterial road connecting Eastern Freeway with Grant Road. This is also a new project. There is also another provision for making a subway at the Western Express Highway. There are a lot of projects that are either in planning or approval stage which will be taken up in a phased manner.

What do you have to say on the huge cost escalation of projects, including GMLR and Sewage Treatment Plant (STP), over the last few years?

The big-ticket projects are very complex and if they are not being implemented within a particular time-frame, the technical methodology that we intend to use for that project evolves and becomes costly. For example, when GMLR was first floated in 2011-12, it was supposed to be an elevated road. But later lot of issues came up and a decision to make it an underground tunnel was taken. But during the process of making the estimates several factors were not considered by the consultant. For example, the lighting technology inside the GMLR tunnel has become so advanced that depending on the depth of the tunnel, the brightness of the lights will be auto-adjusted. The fire-proofing technology has also improved in the last few years. It is due to these factors, there has been a cost escalation. There are other factors like the rupee and dollar exchange rates have also increased. Besides, we have to import tunnel boring machines as well as crew to operate them. These are contributing factors leading to cost escalations.

Do you think the expansion of road networks actually helps in decongesting the city, or should there be a better idea of taking vehicles off the road?

Our (BMC) job is to make and provide roads to the city but taking vehicles off the roads is not our job. We can think about implementing congestion tax or like Singapore we can say that one person can only own one car. There can be multiple policy tools through which you can regulate the number of vehicles, but setting up these policies doesn’t fall under the purview of the civic body. Our job is to provide better roads and to make travel smoother by filling missing links. As per the CM’s direction we are working towards bettering the existing road infrastructure, which may not decongest roads but my experience is that as roads become better the vehicle density also increases. But true measure of development is how many people take public transport. Now the Metro network is coming up and BEST buses are also being upgraded. So, in the next two-three years we will see how people shift from cars to public transport.

With Coastal Road and MTHL coming up, more people will be able to access Mumbai using cars. But today there’s hardly any parking space available in Mumbai. How do you see this?

The only way to regulate the vehicles is to have a holistic parking policy, which is not in place. Today we are experimenting on a mechanised car parking able to accommodate 300 cars at a time. Here the parking prices will be higher. Besides, the BMC with Mumbai Parking Authority (MPA) is also formulating policies towards regulating on-street and off-street parking. The MPA is also coming up with a new expression of interest towards using the available car parking in housing societies. We are developing an app for this and the tender will be floated next month!

What are the biggest contributors to air pollution in Mumbai?

Due to slow wind speed that Mumbai is experiencing this year, the dust particles in the lower atmosphere are not dissipating easily. There has also been a change in weather pattern. Also, more than 3,000 construction and real estate projects are ongoing in Mumbai due to which digging and boring work is being undertaken. Even BMC’s infrastructure works have also increased. There are also refineries around Mumbai which is a contributing factor. Therefore, all these issues have played a combined effect.

What happened to BMC’s plan of setting up a transport hub in some of the entry-exit points of Mumbai?

We are fairly in an advanced stage on this project. We have appointed consultants for carrying traffic count study in Dahisar and Vashi and data generation has already happened. This hub will be made in a way that outstation buses could drop passengers in these hubs, from there people can take BEST buses or Metro further into the city. We also planned a similar hub in Mulund as well, but it is still at an ideation stage because the land parcel in Mulund could be used for other projects like making casting yard after the GMLR is completed.

While there is so much focus on infrastructure for vehicular traffic do you think the pedestrians are being ignored? The state of most of our footpaths is not proper.

If we are spending Rs 6,800 crore on cement roads, it helps people who are travelling by buses. There are many groups who prefer walking including the elderly. We need to have a pedestrian-friendly infrastructure in place. Unfortunately, we have to say that this infrastructure is not up to the mark. In some places, the footpaths are missing or encroached upon. BMC already has a pedestrian first policy. The policy is not implemented in actuality to that extent. Now this year, we have decided wherever the road is wider than 9 metres, we want to create good quality footpath. We have made Rs 250 crore budget provision for this year. Our policy is now that we will have a world-class footpath that is also accessible to people with disabilities.