It's a question that’s raised often, and according to many, it’s just plain unfair: Can Mumbai be a Shanghai? Yes, it can, and that’s critical to India because Shanghai’s transformation into a first-world city was the dragonhead of China’s rapid growth in the 90s.That’s the emphatic bottom line of a seminal report on Mumbai’s future made public today by consulting firm McKinsey and presented to Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde.The chief minister immediately announced a task force headed by chief secretary Ajit Nimbalkar. Senior IAS officer Sanjay Ubale will be the pointman for the report’s implementation. ‘‘I believe this report will make us think of Mumbai as a city of the future,’’ said Shinde, adding ‘‘We need to pay attention to the finer details.we will crystallise our plan of action in the next two months’’.The sobering fact of course is that the state government boasts a debt of about Rs 83,000 crore and is forever appealing for Central funding. That doesn’t seem to matter. Nor does the fact that only about Rs 1,000 crore comes back to Mumbai from the Rs 40,000 crore that the city contributes in revenue every year.‘‘The money is right here,’’ declared Ranjit Pandit, Managing Director McKinsey. ‘‘We just need to channelise it.’’But the culture of dependency stuck with Shinde as he glanced at the Prime Minister’s special representative Sudheendra Kulkarni. ‘‘We have requested the PM to grant Mumbai Rs 18,000 crore.’’ Here’s how the money can be raised • Rs 1,00,000 to Rs 1,50,000 through private investments in housing, power, telecom, manufacturing and services • Rs 50,000 crore is the total public investment needed • Rs 30,000 crore in loans through public-private partnerships • Rs 15,000 crore is the government equity needed. That’s just about Rs 1,500 crore every year At crossroads • Asia: Mumbai fell from 26th place in 1996 to 33rd in 2000 in Asiaweek’s ranking of top 40 Asian cities •n World: Mumbai ranks 163 among 218 cities on Forbes’ quality-of-life survey; 124th among 130 cities in The Economist’s hardship ratings • The situation will worsen with an expected population increase of 2 million over the next decade • Its growth rate fell from 7 per cent between 1994-1998 to 2.4 per cent between 1998-2002. The slowdown has affected the entire state and the region The report observed that Mumbai is ‘‘more than capable’’ of generating the seemingly mind-boggling price tag of Rs 1,50,000-Rs 2,00,000 crore over the decade ahead, much of it coming from the private sector (see box).It sets out an eight-point agenda of radical change in transportation, housing, sanitation and environment, before the city can achieve an economic growth rate of 8-10 per cent in a decade, from the piffling 2.4 per cent now.‘‘To achieve this status, the government and citizens need to undergo a change in mind-set,’’ declared Michael Fernandes, principal, Mckinsey. In short, the CM must think like a professional CEO, departments must be corporatised and agencies must be held accountable to targets.To be sure, there have been many reports on transforming Mumbai, but the McKinsey report was commissioned and supported by the state government, the municipal corporation and the regional development authority.McKinsey was assisted by Bombay First, an organisation that boasts patrons from Mumbai’s — and India’s — biggest corporate names: Tatas, Hindustan Lever, Asian Paints, SBI and others. So these then are Mumbai’s aspirations by 2013:• Boost economic growth to 8-10 per cent instead of 2.4 presently. That should create half a million new jobs. • Improve mass and private transport infrastructure through new rail lines, expressways and buses. Eventually, no more than 220 people in a rail coach, compared to the 570 today.• Reduce the slum population by at least 20 per cent from 60 per cent presently by constructing one million homes.• Other improvements: reduce air pollution, increase water supply, cut administrative expenses by half, and, the most important, cut red tape.
