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Journalism of Courage
Enough has already been written about the problems afflicting Ulhasnagar, the refugee camp-township which turned 50 on August 8. A lot of printing ink has also been wasted in tracing the chronology of what went wrong, but what still remains unclear is solutions and alternatives.
While the state government can keep on appointing committees of enquiry to go into details of how the politico-criminal nexus, illegal constructions and insanitation thrive on each other, it would do well to look deeper to find out where it has gone wrong. Take the cut-off date announced for the regularising of structures. While everywhere else it has been extended to 1995, in Ulhasnagar it still continues to be May 11, 1965! Not surprisingly, everybody is out to prove that their structure was built before the cut-off date. Recession or no recession, there can be no lull in the demand for more land in this 13 sq-km town. This has bred corruption like nothing else. What would otherwise explain the constant crowd outside the townplanning and development department in the UMC? Nobody is asking the government to junk the Development Plan 8212; definitely not where roads are concerned 8212; but it will have to make some policy decision on whether it wants to take extreme steps of pulling down more than 90 per cent of the structures those many are illegal or create a more realistic cut-off date. As a senior architect said soon after the Saideep Palace crash, the government could bulldoze the whole town and begin afresh by marking out well-planned plots. Search your soul, CM saheb8230; as Urban Development Minister have you got what it takes to talk tough here.
