THE grand picture of a developed Nagpur -- painted by political leadership years ago -- appears to be too far fetched a dream. That grand picture may never be fully complete in the near future (which may mean the next 15-20 years). The general impression is, the city of Nagpur is forever under construction of this or that project. And then there are many areas that are in an eternal turmoil as the developmental work goes on endlessly. As a result, Nagpurians are harassed all the time. For, for the last 10-12 years, they have known only one impression --never-ending work on roads and pavements and bridges ... ! If a road is ready, its sidewalks are not.

 

If the sidewalks are ready, there is always an agency to dig through those to lay some pipeline or some power-line. This is simply disgusting, to say the least -- for many reasons: One, ongoing work often creates nuisance for traffic; Two, there is an impression that there is no one to take the ultimate responsibility to complete the developmental works in time and in a neat and well-designed manner; Three, the people carry an impression that the city lacks a genuine leadership to lead the process of development in a neat, concrete manner. ... The leadership issue is a serious business, one must say. For, if the city had had a proper, thoughtful and serious leadership, it would not have allowed thoughtless initiation of various developmental projects. It would not have ensured that the roads and intersections and sidewalks and fly-overs and other public infrastructure are designed well to suit the purpose for which those have been thought of. But because the city does not have leadership (it may have ministers and elected representatives and a full-blown bureaucracy, all right), many, many developmental projects in Nagpur have been handled in haphazard manner -- in the process giving the people eternal jitters.

 

Many examples can be cited to prove this point. The fly-overs, for example. Most fly-overs in the city suffer from bad design whose utility quotient is very low. Most fly-overs have badly designed approaches and exits on both ends -- which is why there often are traffic snarl-ups at the ends of the fly-overs. Another example is of sidewalks. These days, the civic administration ensures that sidewalks are paved with interlocking blocks -- that leave no space between the road’s passage-way and the edge of the sidewalks. Since that leave no space for parking of bigger vehicles, the people take liberties to park their vehicles right on the sidewalks in most places in the city. So, when the sidewalks are used for parking, the pedestrians are forced to walk on the road’s main passage-way. The outcome: full-blown chaos. Third example is of badly designed road-intersections -- cause much physical discomfort to the road-users. And the ‘funny’ part of many, many intersections in the city is that the central part of the crossing is generally ill-lit. The city’s leadership is fully conscious of these difficulties since those men and women in high places live in this very city. So, they know the problems.

 

Despite this, from their side, there is little effort to sort out things. Probably, that is the trouble with power. Once the ghost of power enters the head, the brain leaves the place. This appears to be the case with the city’s leadership. That must be the reason why they do not see the problems of the city as those are -- having been blinded by the tint of power their glasses have. These are the developmental woes of Nagpur -- which every citizen knows, every leader knows. Yet, there is no one among the leadership pyramid to take control and get things corrected. This may be described in other words -- the city has leaders, all right, but no leadership. Who will solve this problem ? -- and how ? n