The engineering departments of the Municipal Company of Larger Mumbai appear hell bent on new development work that does nothing for town. A number of years in the past it was bridges throughout town that have been declared unsafe, calling for pressing reconstruction. This was triggered by the collapse of a footbridge close to the Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in 2019.
The ensuing panic was the right, instantaneous fertiliser that led to quite a few bridge alternative initiatives bursting forth. These have been strongly suggested by a professor from considered one of Mumbai’s oldest engineering faculties. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and reconstructions have been trivial.
Over the previous yr, there was a debate on the proposal to demolish the Malabar Hill Reservoir, deemed unsafe, and reconstruct it at a price of over Rs 700 crore. Based on the unique proposal, this can require the development of a further tank at an additional price of Rs 700 crore and the slicing of 189 bushes plus transplanting of one other 200.
Happily, protests by residents have persuaded the civic physique to nominate a technical Committee of seven specialists, 4 of whom are professors of the Indian Institute of Know-how, and an eighth member who’s a civic officer.
After the inspection of the tank, 4 of the specialists, together with one of many IIT professors, submitted a closing report saying the tank wants minor repairs that aren’t pressing and that these might be carried out compartment by compartment with out slicing any bushes or interrupting the water provide.
The remaining three IIT professors and the civic officer have refused to signal that report and as a substitute submitted an impartial closing report saying the tank can’t be repaired in phases and a separate extra tank – involving the slicing of a number of hundred bushes – is a should. The primary 4 have refused to signal the second report.
With two closing reviews in diametrically reverse battle with one another, how does one proceed? The best choice shall be to ask worldwide tenders for restore of the tank, compartment by compartment, with out slicing any bushes or interrupting the water provide. Let the worldwide development business say it can’t be completed. Then, work can proceed based mostly on the second closing report.
But when it may be completed, with out slicing bushes and interrupting water provide, then two vital points come up.
The primary is that we’re being led to consider that professors, for no different cause aside from that they’ve a excessive educational diploma, are thought of each technically infallible in addition to resistant to cajolement of any form. It’s now time to query that.
Second, what of the municipal officers who conceived of the scheme within the first place? An expenditure of Rs 1,400 crore just isn’t trivial.
Ought to the hydraulic engineer and their colleagues not be held liable for proposing a very pointless venture? Does nobody lose their job? Or not less than endure a demotion? If there’s zero punishment, will it not encourage extra ineffective initiatives, with some going by means of with their uselessness undetected?
The writer is a civil engineer and concrete planner, one of many three authors who urged the concept of Navi Mumbai.