- 26 minutes ago
In an exclusive interview with India Today, Shiv Sena MP Milind Deora spoke on Mumbai's monsoon mess that claimed three lives in three days.
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00:00Let me go straight across to my top guest today, Milind Deora, the Rajya Sabha MP.
00:06He's been a multiple times also Lok Sabha MP from Mumbai, now with the Shiv Sena.
00:11Joins me, appreciate your joining us, Mr. Deora.
00:14You have tweeted today, another life lost, another preventable tragedy.
00:19How many Mumbai cars must die before civic safety becomes a priority?
00:24Open manholes are not accidents.
00:26They are the result of negligence, failed system and lack of accountability.
00:30The Bombay High Court has repeatedly pulled up the BMC over the recurring menace of open manholes and unsafe roads.
00:36These are entirely avoidable tragedies that continue.
00:39Mumbai deserves answers.
00:41Who should give the answers, Mr. Deora?
00:44Your party is in power.
00:46You are from the Shiv Sena.
00:47They are the party in power in the BMC.
00:49Who is to give the answers?
00:51You are the people who should be giving the answers, not us, the citizens.
00:55Very nice to be rhetorical.
00:56Who's going to give the answers, sir?
01:00Mr. Sardes, firstly, I knew you would try to politicize the issue and make it about party A, party B,
01:08which party is in power.
01:09I will steer clear of politics.
01:10I don't think the people of Mumbai want to indulge in politics.
01:13You say Mumbai deserves answers.
01:14No, no, Mr. Deora, you have said Mumbai deserves answers.
01:17I want to know from whom.
01:18Please let me complete.
01:19Who does Mumbai deserve answers from?
01:21You answer that for me.
01:22Then we can say it's not political.
01:23You are a politician.
01:26Please let me complete.
01:27Please do.
01:27I'm speaking firstly as a Mumbaiker and I would urge you to not speak as a politician or a journalist
01:33and speak as a Mumbaiker first.
01:34Number one.
01:35Number two.
01:36If you want to politicize the issue, yes, I can get back into the fact that the UBT was running
01:44the Mumbai municipality for the last 30 years.
01:46You yourself have asked Aditya Thakri this question many times on various shows.
01:51I can get into blaming them and saying that this is a result of their negligence, their corruption.
01:56Let me tell you firstly what is happening in the BMC.
01:59Number one.
02:01In the last few years, when Mr. Iknachinde became Chief Minister of Maharashtra, now while Mr. Devendra Fadnavis is Chief
02:09Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Iknachinde is Urban Development Minister of Maharashtra,
02:14there have been improvements in the functioning, the accountability of the BMC.
02:18Let me give you a few examples of that.
02:20The coastal road is one such project which is being implemented by the BMC.
02:23We have not just one of the best roads which is replacing traditional arterial roads in this city, decongesting traffic.
02:30It also has a world-class cycling path.
02:32It will also have a world-class garden.
02:34When augmented with the Mahalakshmi race course, we will have 300 acres of open land like a central park thrown
02:40open to the people of Mumbai.
02:41One minute.
02:41Secondly, today if you look at the pothole menace which used to exist for the last 20-30 years,
02:46I've come on your show several times where every monsoon we would debate potholes as an electoral issue.
02:52You see, I'm not saying there are no potholes in Mumbai City,
02:56but you see a remarkably lower number of potholes because of concretization of roads,
03:01because the political bureaucrat contractor nexus is slowly but steadily coming to an end.
03:08You see today less flooding on the streets of Mumbai because of stormwater drainage network.
03:13In fact, as a Lok Sabha MP with my late father, we were the ones who demanded that the central
03:17government should give
03:18almost 1,200 crore rupees for a project called Brimstoward, which is the Brihan Mumbai stormwater drainage project, which has
03:24reduced flooding.
03:26So there are some things which are happening, which are good.
03:29We are rejuvenating the city, we are modernizing the city.
03:33No, no, no, sir, nobody, Mr. Dehra, Mr. Dehra, Mr. Dehra, Mr. Dehra, you are, no, no, no, I will,
03:40no, no, no, Mr. Dehra, you have said Mumbai deserves answers.
03:43You please answer from whom?
03:45Mumbai deserves answers you are saying time and again.
03:48Deserves from whom?
03:48And you are saying that Mumbai is pothole free.
03:51I should take you from your comfort of South Mumbai into some other part.
03:55Someone has just sent me a message.
03:56Please tell Milind Dehra, I will take him into interior parts of Mumbai and show him the potholes.
04:02So please don't say Mumbai is pothole free.
04:05Firstly, Mr. Sardesai, please try, stop trying to be sensational and get more eyeballs.
04:10My request is a serious issue.
04:12Please tell me who, no, no, please answer my, no, Mr. Dehra, answer my question.
04:17Mumbai deserves answers from whom?
04:19Vihant Srivastav's parents deserve answers from whom?
04:22Who does, Vihant, no, sir, no, because you are not answering my question.
04:26You are saying Mumbai deserves answers.
04:28Vihant Srivastav's father and mother deserve answers from whom?
04:32If you allow me to speak, I will answer your question.
04:34Please go.
04:35I am saying that again as a Mumbaiker, I have nobody to defend.
04:39And I don't believe that if, I will only make one statement.
04:43And I say this cutting across party lines.
04:45I don't believe today, when I looked at what happened in the Maharashtra Assembly,
04:49when there was a debate on what's happening in Mumbai and the functioning of the BMC,
04:53almost every political party from the ruling benches, the treasury benches,
04:57and the opposition benches were unanimous.
04:59That severe action has to be taken against bureaucrats.
05:03The fact is that today, I'm proud to say that after I tweeted,
05:07and from the time I tweeted to the time I joined your show,
05:09the municipality, the Mumbai Municipal Corporation,
05:13has suspended several officers, has blacklisted a contractor.
05:19My opinion, when an inquiry is complete, we have to go one step further.
05:23Suspending an officer, sacking an officer, blacklisting a contractor is not enough.
05:29We have to put fear into those people and ensure that this never happens again.
05:33Holding the administration accountable is extremely critical.
05:37What does that mean?
05:38That when an inquiry is completed, for example, 97%, almost 97% of manholes in Mumbai City,
05:46what is required is that the BMC is implementing a project
05:50where they are putting a protective grill under each manhole.
05:54That God forbid the manhole cover is open, streets are flooded, somebody falls in, it's protected.
05:59About 3 or 5% are not completed.
06:01Why are they not complete?
06:03If a bureaucrat, if an award officer, if somebody, local and executive engineer,
06:08has failed to do their duty, if a contractor has failed to do his own duty,
06:11the harshest punishment of the provisions of the law should be meted out against them.
06:16That's what I'm saying.
06:17If we have that kind of accountability...
06:18Why only the officials are you telling?
06:19No, no, just a minute.
06:20You seem to be suggesting, Mr. Devra, that the accountability ends with the officials.
06:25What about the, you're saying that a contractor is being blacklisted.
06:29Good. That's a good step.
06:31Black contractors should be blacklisted.
06:34No, I would say, I would go a step further.
06:36Everyone knows.
06:36What's kept secret is the nexus between corporators.
06:40No, no, one minute, sir.
06:41There is a nexus between corporators or local level leaders, contractors and the officials.
06:46The politicians will get away.
06:47They are nicely sitting in the assembly.
06:49They are sitting in a luxury five-star hotel in Trident.
06:52They don't have to go through these roads like cities have to.
06:58When will there be political accountability?
07:00Mumbai demands answers from our politicians, Mr. Devra.
07:06Well, Mr. Sardesai, if there is any proof that any politician, whether it's a municipal
07:09cooperator from my party, from any other party, to any level, is involved in this, I'll be
07:15the first one to demand that there should be action against them.
07:17But when you say, when will there be political accountability?
07:20Let me elevate the discussion a little bit, rather than making it who's responsible.
07:24Because as I said, I don't want to get in to repeat that point that UBT has been running
07:29and looting Mumbai municipality for the last 30 years.
07:32The fact is that today, urban governance in many parts of the country, and I don't think
07:38that this is unique to Mumbai.
07:39If I ask you and viewers of your show today, whether they're watching this show from Bangalore,
07:44from Chennai, from Mumbai, from Delhi, from Pune, from a tier one city, tier two city, tier
07:48three city, to name their city's mayor, very few people will know who their city's mayor
07:53is.
07:54And I don't blame the citizen.
07:55I blame the fact that we have not implemented a 74th Constitutional Amendment, which came
08:02into effect in 1993, which calls for greater devolution of powers to municipalities.
08:07The fact is, Rajdeep, as I raised in the Parliament of India recently, that when we compete with
08:12countries like China and the United States, we have a severe urban governance deficit in
08:17our country.
08:18And if you look at a country like China, if you look at a country like the United States,
08:22they don't just have interstate competition.
08:24India has very healthy interstate competition.
08:27Telangana competes against Maharashtra, Maharashtra competes against Gujarat, Gujarat competes against
08:31Karnatak, that's healthy, we attract investments.
08:34Cities countries like China, countries like the United States have intercity competition.
08:39My aspiration is that in a state like Maharashtra, Mumbai should be competing with Pune, should
08:44be competing with Nagpur.
08:45And to do that, you have to give local governments powers that allow them to operate as cities
08:54that can govern, take financial decisions for themselves.
08:56They are accountable.
08:58The voters of that particular city can say that this particular mayor, this particular
09:02deputy mayor, this particular leader of opposition, this particular corporator is failing to do
09:07his or her job and I'm going to re-elect them or punish them.
09:11So there is a political...
09:12Mr. Deora, you're making a good point.
09:13No, no, you're making a good point.
09:15Mr. Deora, you're making a good point that you need elected accountable mayors at the moment.
09:19In the absence of that, who do I hold accountable?
09:22I am asking, you see, because my entire debate has started with your premise that Mumbai demands
09:27answers.
09:28Who do I make accountable?
09:30I am a Mumbaiker.
09:31I want to know, do I make the...
09:33For three or four years in between, in fact, for five years, there were even no corporators
09:37because no elections were held.
09:39We all have seen the assets of corporators rising multifold because the BMC has a huge budget.
09:47How do I get an audit as to where the money has gone?
09:50You're saying you're blacklisting one contractor.
09:52It's a good step, I repeat.
09:54But how is it going to be made systematic every time a road is every three years rebuilt?
09:59Clearly, that means the first road there was a problem.
10:02How do I blacklist?
10:03I am a citizen.
10:04I want answers, Mr. Deora.
10:06Yes, to answer your question.
10:06Just like you want.
10:06To answer your question.
10:07But my question is, I have not heard answers from those in power.
10:11You're blaming officials.
10:12To answer your question in the short term...
10:13I want answers from the politicians.
10:14In the short term, what we have to do, and I speak as a citizen, what we have to do
10:20is
10:20demand accountability, greater accountability from the system that exists.
10:24The system is an imperfect system today.
10:25I'm the first one to admit that.
10:27Whether it's a local municipal councillor, whether it's the ward officer, they need to
10:32be held accountable.
10:33I personally don't believe suspending the ward officer and bureaucrats as has been done today
10:37or blacklisting a contract is enough.
10:39I'm the first one to say that when the inquiry is completed, the harshest punishments, they
10:45should be booked, sent to jail under the harshest provisions of the law.
10:51Blacklisting is not enough, mind you.
10:53Suspending somebody and sacking somebody from duty is not enough.
10:55If there is such negligence that people are dying, those people should be arrested.
11:00They should be sent to jail.
11:01If there is proof that there is corruption, I'll be the first one to say that let any
11:07agency from the centre to the state probe them and send them to jail against the harshest
11:11punishments.
11:12In the long term, and I do believe that this is a systemic issue that needs to be fixed
11:16because otherwise we'll have the same debate next year regardless of which party is in
11:20power.
11:21In the long term, what we as citizens need to do to demand answers.
11:24In 1993, a constitutional amendment bill was passed in the Parliament of India, the 74th
11:31Constitutional Amendment, that called for a greater devolution of powers, meaning a greater
11:37decentralization of powers from states to municipalities.
11:41For example, in most cities today around the country, around the world, for instance, the
11:47law and order, the police comes under that mayor of that city.
11:50In our country, it's very different.
11:51The law and order, the police commissioner would report to the state government.
11:55An issue like housing would come under the local municipality, an issue like transportation
11:58overseas would come under the local municipality.
12:01In our country, in every state government, issues like housing, issues like transportation
12:05would come under the state government.
12:07If we do not in the long run make devolution and decentralization of powers for urban governance,
12:14I repeat, and electoral issues, I'm afraid we will not have a solution to this problem.
12:19If we do not allow cities to compete against each other in the same way that states are competing
12:25against each other, we will not, I repeat, be able to compete effectively against a China
12:30or a United States.
12:32That's what's creating innovation in those countries.
12:34I take your, you know, you know, Mr. Deura, as you rightly said, we could well come back
12:41next year and discuss this issue again, which is the troubling part.
12:44I just want to put on record, there was a 2005 deluge in Mumbai, where hundreds of people
12:52unfortunately lost their lives.
12:53Sometimes it was unprecedented, the flooding.
12:55A committee was appointed.
12:57The committee made clear recommends, Madhav Chitle Commission, desilting rivers, protecting
13:03mangroves, banning construction on floodplains, integrated urban planning.
13:08How much of it has been fulfilled?
13:11Only two days ago in the Mumbai High Court.
13:14Only two days ago in the High Court, the BMC informed the court that protective safety
13:20grills have been installed over 70,000 manholes, but also admitted that 3,000 manholes are yet
13:26to be filled with protective mechanism.
13:27This is the truth, Mr. Deura.
13:29These are the hard facts.
13:30I'm accepting that.
13:32Why has that not been done?
13:33So you must accept that there has been, as when I said Mumbai cars demand answers, you
13:38must accept that there has been a failure over the last two decades.
13:41Of course there has been a failure.
13:43And I'm saying that there is a political party that looted Mumbai for 25 years.
13:47I'm accepting that problem.
13:49A political party that looted Mumbai includes all the people who are part of your party.
13:53Let's not make it only UBT.
13:5590% of them are also in the Shinde Sena.
13:58So please don't.
13:59No, you're politicizing it by blaming UBT.
14:01UBT alone is not responsible.
14:03And BJP was their partner.
14:05They are responsible.
14:07But that's a different issue.
14:08Now history is history.
14:08Each and every one of you all is responsible who are in power.
14:11Or in BMC.
14:12Whichever, Shiv Sena, you belong to.
14:14Let me now tell you one thing.
14:16Today, for example, why are you not seeing as many potholes on the streets of Mumbai?
14:21Because we've moved towards a concretization of a system of roads.
14:25We're putting in roads that don't need to be repaired every year.
14:28You're cutting down trees.
14:29You're cutting down trees as a result.
14:31You're cutting down trees.
14:32And many old trees are still there.
14:34Trees are falling because of the rampant concretization.
14:36Mr. Sardesai, you cannot have everything.
14:40You cannot please everyone in a city like Mumbai.
14:44If you want governance and you want to reduce potholes and you want to remove corruption,
14:48you have to break the politician, contractor, bureaucrat nexus that was running amok for the last 25 years.
14:55We are attempting to do that.
14:56As I said, I'm not claiming that every road in Mumbai is pothole free.
15:01But slowly but steadily, we are ensuring under Mr. Sardesai's leadership that roads are concretized.
15:08Otherwise, what was happening every year, 3,000 crore rupees of taxpayer money was being spent to repair roads.
15:15And what was happening, the same contractor who was not being blacklisted,
15:19the same contractor was being asked to repair those roads.
15:22That was an example of the politician, bureaucrat, contractor nexus.
15:25That's being done away with.
15:27It's slowly but steadily being untangled.
15:29We need to do that in different areas.
15:30As I said, with potholes and road repairs, we've made progress.
15:35With certain areas like flooding, we have made progress.
15:38Do we need to do much more?
15:40Yes.
15:40But as I said, simply suspending, blacklisting contractors and officers is not enough.
15:46They need the harshest punishment.
15:47If there are politicians involved, there is proof.
15:49An investigation concludes that they are involved.
15:52I'll be the first one to say, arrest them, regardless of which party they're from.
15:55But I repeat, the long-term solution for urban governance in India, and this is not unique to Mumbai.
16:00This is true of Delhi.
16:01This is true of any city, regardless of which party.
16:04From the opposition, all the ruling dispensation is in power.
16:06If you do not have decentralization of powers, you will not have the kind of urban governance you see around
16:13the world.
16:13One last point, in the United States, in a continent like Europe, the minute there is a crisis, the first
16:21person you see on the scene is not the prime minister or the president of that country.
16:25It's not the chief minister or the governor of that state.
16:27It's the mayor of that city.
16:30That's the kind of governance we need.
16:32And for that, all of us as citizens need to ensure that it becomes an electoral issue.
16:37You know, the fact is that we, the citizens, frankly, are helpless.
16:41You are the ones in power.
16:43And I don't know how many of you will bite the hand that feeds you.
16:46But I appreciate at least that you've been relatively honest.
16:49Certainly by President's standards.
16:50Mr. Salvi Sai, I use the same road, the same public transportation.
16:54Also come up with the odd suggestion.
16:56I appreciate it.
16:56I do not have a police envoy that follows me or precedes me.
16:58I use the same public transportation, the same road.
17:01I breathe the same air as you do, as a normal citizen does.
17:04I will leave it there, Mr. Deora.
17:08Maybe I will take you one day.
17:09We will go together to some of the more congested areas of Mumbai.
17:13And we will test your claim that the roads are pothole free.
17:16But I appreciate you joining us.
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