Those in power showing brazen apathy to upkeep of city
| Date :19-May-2025 |
By L P Joshi :
Apropos ‘Of the Issue of Leadership’ of Footloose in Nagpur in two parts (May 8 & May 15). Mr Phanshikar has nailed it by questioning the utter lack of good leadership in the redevelopment of Nagpur, despite a Union Minister and some State ministers being residents of the city. Their brazen apathy towards the upkeep of Nagpur, and their equally brazen disregard for public sentiment, probably stems from the high power and status they enjoy. This reaffirms the notion that contemporary politicians simply cannot be true leaders.
Virtually all Indian cities and towns carry a colonial legacy of unplanned and organic urban growth. As such, they would have been far better classified as ‘no redevelopment zones’ (akin to Paris). The fundamental blunder was permitting the redevelopment of existing cities and towns instead of building new satellite cities or towns, as was done in the case of Chandigarh. As a result, every city and town has been subjected to:
1] Political interference and entrenched corruption,
2] Lack of expertise, insufficient capacity, and inadequate resources,
3] Absence of integrated planning, leading to flawed city development plans,
4] Weak implementation and enforcement of laws, codes, and regulations,
5] Rapid urbanisation without appropriate infrastructure,
6] Rampant encroachment and mafia dominance, and
7] Neglect of environmental considerations.
The elected ‘leadership’, their cronies, incompetent advisors, and the quota-ridden administration are collectively responsible for the ongoing disastrous redevelopment of Nagpur. In any public project—from inception to execution—the sole focus is on aggressive cost-cutting, with little regard for future-proof planning, appropriate design, methodical execution, supervision, or comprehensive quality control. This is evident in the poorly designed and badly executed urban infrastructure, the biased or half-hearted enforcement of building laws, the condition of roads, transportation, traffic systems, and, not least, the state of the environment.
Though written in a different context, an excerpt from my earlier response to one of the previous episodes of Footloose in Nagpur (10-Oct-2024) resonates with the current discussion: “The collective inaction of politicians, lawmakers, and bureaucrats is due to their compulsive affinity for power and funds, which are bestowed by vote banks. Hence, unlike the minority of law-abiding citizens—who might be electorally insignificant—the majority of violators, i.e., criminal-minded individuals, indulge in violations with sheer brazenness. Akin to the saying ‘common sense is not so common’, the law-abiding common people are not so common nowadays. Only conscientious leadership can save our nation, which is heading toward a social disaster.”