Agenda of the City Development

Come election & all the media may it be print or electronic, every news paper & every news channel is flocked by covering the agendas of various parties & candidates. If the election is of scale like Loksabha then the agendas also get vaster as well interesting. You open any of them & u will saw Better Public Transport, Free Home to Slum People, Free Schooling to Girls, Free Electricity & many such. Now how a Loksabha candidates agenda to be judged as before that one needs to understand the issues of the constituency & especially when the constituency is conglomerate of hi fy techies to native farmers to old citylites.And on other hand the city in itself is on the verge of changing gears from pensioners town to an urban metro. Also one needs to understand the jurisdiction of a Loksabha MP & the contribution he can provide. A city like Pune which has got Municipal Corporation for taking their day to day needs whose main job is to maintain the city & it includes making development plan of the city to execute it & provide the basic infrastructure like road, water, drainage etc to its citizens. And the MP should assist the local body by representing their problems at state/central govt level & see that they get what they want in time & for that he has to co ordinate with various local authorities from Police to Municipal Corporation to Electricity Board etc & act as coordinator between them & govt for making policies which in end will be used by the local bodies for local governance. Unfortunately very few understand it & that why we accept the agendas like Cheaper homes & removing unemployment in MP candidate. Well in past 20 years the city has taken a leap on all fronts & that’s has given rise to many issues which weren’t there. Firstly the city limit has grown to over 450 sq km which in itself is bigger than Mumbai! Earlier just 15 years back one used to proudly say that within 30 minutes I can cross the whole city at any hour of the day! Now that’s not possible at any hour of the day is a fact & yet public transport of our city is laughing object for all. The MP can make local bodies to work out a viable plan for public transport, put forward it to the central govt, get assistance on financial/technical fronts from central/state govt & get it executed by keeping a tab on local bodies. The city has expanded its boundaries some ten years back & to the amusement of every common man & in spite being mentioned by every body even the rulers, this city is running without a sanctioned development plan of its extended boundary area! The old city development plan was prepared till 2007 & now over 2 years yet there are no signs of new development plan leave apart the execution of it ! What moral right we have to call our self a yi fi city & oxford of east! What I have observed from the agendas of most of the candidates is any consideration towards public health, especially from lower income group! One should visit Sassoon hospital general ward & se the condition of patients there. Even in Sassoon (Govt General Hospital in Pune) only the riches or people with influence they only gets treatment. It’s not the question of just providing homes to the slum dwellers / poor but to make effort to provide them good health facilities at affordable rate also should be the agenda. In last 62 years from freedom looks how many good public hospitals have been built! Most of the existing ones are done by British; in India Death is Cheapest in compare to any thing. There are Municipal Corporations small scales hospitals across the city but just one have to take one glance of them & he will understand the effectiveness of the services they can offer! Also they aren't able to handle specialized treatments is a fact too. When one moves in the slums ask them about their health & medical facilities & then one will realize how neglected that issue is. Go to Sassoon as a common man & se what treatment u get & how difficult is to get the medicine which has been prescribed to u. These are the tip of ice bergs of the problems these city residents are facing. There are things like even with repeated promises even the land in residential zones need NA (Non Agriculture) permission from revenue. There are talks of single window passing but in PMC itself you have to go to 8-10 departments for any development. The MERC has clearly given guide line that MSEB cant charge any development charges to the customer asking for new connection neither they can ask him to lay the infrastructure like HT Cable etc ,but the fact is MSEB Pune division hasn’t got enough funds sanctioned yet they are the highest revenue generators for the state electricity board. And result is every customer has to bare enormous charges to get one single meter. The list this city's issue is growing along with the expand of the city & we need a candidate for Loksabha who can understand the root of problem & will cover them in his agenda. And it's not just the slum dwellers, every person of the the society is victim of some or other problem. After all, society doesn't mean any particular income group, it’s the bunch of people who want to live together without thinking selfishly! Keep this in mind while we vote friends !

Article by : Sanjay Deshpande ( Envo Committee Chairman, PBAP ) Posted on 10th April 2009