-
"There are millions of options to chose when its future,
what you chose today will decide yours"... Dr.Strange from movie Infinity
Wars, Marvel Studio.
These are not my words as even the fifty days of lockdown won’t
make me that philosophical but then, that’s why Stan Lee was greatest
philosopher among us in recent times & his hundreds of characters speak it
via Marvel movies, problem is we just clap & forget it! And when its
subject is of future of the Smart City, possibly I couldn’t have chosen
anything better than his above words! Well, we are at the end of the
tunnel named lock down season 3 (hopefully) though there isn’t bright light
awaiting us at the end of the tunnel for sure. And as expected lock down season
four has been announced by our Hon PM & I am not frightening or
exaggerating but lock down over doesn’t mean exit of the virus is a fact
which by now few wise minds among us must have understood & that’s why
wisdom is such rare thing, it’s always with a few. But like
there are just few tigers in the forest so most tourists went to forests to
have a glimpse of the tiger even once; wisdom being rarer than a tiger yet
never chased or even acknowledged is the main problem of our society!
Anyways don’t want to get too philosophical as people like
Marvel movies for action more & not philosophy is also a fact, so let’s
speak about future of the Smart City i.e. “Aapale Pune” post this lock down.
That way every ruler (political or bureaucratic) loves to speak about the
future of this city (any city actually), how it will be pollution free &
green & clean & Smart anyway we are (don’t ask how?) by the end of next
year or their tenure whichever is earlier but as that future has been self
chosen, it always ends up something different is what we all have witnessed
over the decades. Every year budget of this city is made with thousands of
crores of rupees for the development works & next year again same works
have been repeated in the agenda. Indeed with due respect to everyone
associated with the city’s future (mainly PMC) we are much better than many
other cities in the State or even Country but then in the class you don’t excel
by comparing with dumbest of the boy, do you? If you want to excel in
whatever you are doing then there are two ways, one is compare (i.e. study)
with the student better than you & another is self analysis with third eye
(or mind), so as to know where & what you lack in! And what better
opportunity there could have been than this virus outbreak to test ourselves
for worst of the scenario on many fronts, indeed we have failed on most of them
but that was bound to happen!
Many won’t like it (especially my friends in the system i.e. govt)
& many will be happy (so called social as well political figures) but I am
not saying this to make someone happy of unhappy but stating the facts I have
been observing. First & foremost no one knew, who is the boss of the city
to control the spread of epidemic because every govt dept was running their own
agenda with noble intentions (of-course) but outcome was confusion, this has to
be corrected in future! Indeed just imagine total population of
Maharashtra is nearly 11.50 cr while area of the State is 300,000sq km. Out of
this 11.50 cr nearly 1.10 cr lives in Pune region (pmc,pcmc, pmrda fringe of
both) with area of approx 1500 sq km, imagine the population density here!
These are guess about population, as from here only, the failures starts, we
don’t know exact figures of how many people exactly lives in Pune region i.e.
pmc, pcmc & pmrda area on fringe of these two municipal corporations along
with cantonment population! Then there is issue of floating population which
includes labour class in various trades & white collared ones i.e. IT type
sector! So we don’t know how many people fled from Pune during outbreak time.
At the same time when we don’t know exact population & its nature how we
are going to decide future of this population. Some standard
questions are asked often which I bluntly answer that even gods can’t be
knowing it & they are, how many flats are unsold in Pune (read as homes),
how many workers you think will be on sites, how many of them are from out
station, how many buildings (read as flats) are under construction in Pune &
the list is on. As these are important questions when you are fighting a
worldwide epidemic type disaster & this data will help you on many fronts
is something we need to understand. There has to be an apex body
of PMC/PCMC & PMRDA as on record these may be different entity but just as
in forests a tiger don’t know core zone or buffer or village & he roams in
all three areas same way a citizen of Pune region doesn’t understand such
differentiation & it has caused many issues during lock down which was a
big headache for the govt also to monitor!
Then coming to the infrastructure, just a small example; the
biggest public hospital i.e. medical facility of city is Sassoon hospital with
say staff of some one thousand people. Each of them if need a mask to wear which
has to be changed every eight hours so two masks a person makes 2000 masks a
day. One N95 mask costs Rs 180 then 2000 x 180 makes nearly Rs, 3.60
lakh per day just for mask & they don’t had budget, so what the staff
should do? This has been shared by one of Sassoon employee to me, I am no
medical expert but even police dept was not having that kind of supply support
of essential things like sanitizers, gloves, is a fact. Then comes most
important factor & that is quarantine facilities for the patients
especially poor people as well shelter facilities for homeless people in such
times! It was only our luck that the outbreak was right in school vacations so
we have saved as many govt (pmc) schools were used as shelters but for how many
days & what about sanitation of these spaces as some day the kids are
going to use it again, are we no risking their lives. Indeed this is virus
& will die eventually but what about some radiation outbreak & patients
of that type which will leave radio activeness back even they are gone from the
place? Well, this may sound weird & too much hyped but then have any of us
ever witnessed the kind of outbreak & lock down of entire country for fifty
days ever yet entire country experienced it & still going through & I
think that’s enough price to pay to learn our lesson!
So, high time for basic changes need to be done in City
Development Plan (DP) as well budget provisions. Things like converting at
least fifty percent of the existing amenity spaces in temporary shelter
buildings has to be done now instead using it for things like Samaj
Mandir or Sr Citizen Centers type useless activities ( sorry but
that’s fact). As well lease them to private genuine parties (that’s important)
to use it on basis of rent as well making them available on notice of 24 hours
for accommodation of shelter as & when needed i.e. in case of disaster or
emergency. Also every school public or private must have an attached toilet
block to each room as then it can be used for additional shelter in case needed
extra space. As well budget provisions for fighting disasters must be done in
two ways i.e. for making infrastructure as well creating contingency fund or
reserve which can be used in such times so every time govt (pmc) does not have
to beg to other agencies which are already bleeding due to impact of such
disasters yet keep on doing their best possible help! Most importantly
ward wise there has to be full-fledged disaster management center with basic
facilities like essential equipment stock for major disasters &
accommodation facilities as well quarantine facilities for the people working
on rescue or awareness mission. As or else families of constables & nurses
& ward boys are at threat of getting contaminated which has happened this
time.
Coming to spread of epidemic in Pune as well in major big cities
& one thing everybody has witnessed, it’s only because of density of
population & in illegal settlements i.e. slums mostly! I am not blaming
slum dwellers as nobody lives in hail with will but I am definitely blaming or
charging the system named Govt which allowed these slums to come in existence
& grow! At least now the govt will wake up (I wonder about it seriously)
& start doing actually something about slums instead just forming a puppet
named Zopadpatti Punarvikas Mahamandal i.e. Slum Redevelopment Scheme
something something. And please don’t allow any new illegal building as well
stop playing Tom & Jerry with illegal buildings issue. For those
who don’t understand the reference, these two are characters of Disney where
Tom the Cat is always chasing Jerry the mouse but never catches it & even
if catches yet somehow Jerry gets free & the chase is always on for nearly
now sixty years. Same way the govt (whatever party it may) keeps playing the
chasing game with illegal homes in entire State & keeps regularizing the
existing illegal buildings & keeps announcing new laws for not formation of
new illegal buildings which like Jerry keep coming in existence! As not even
Super Man can stop spread of any virus in these slum settlements & imagine
what will happen if some bomb or radioactive thing goes off here or even a
major fire or earth quake, anything. And yet we haven’t reached the
peak of the epidemic because local body (pmc) & police along with Collector
are fighting hard to keep these people in their homes but has anybody seen what
we call their home? And what will happen if every this slum resident ran out of
slum & start occupying (read as mixing) every available open space just out
of fear, have we thought of that? The people in slums share one room
between average five to six persons & everything right from bed to toilet
to kitchen is common, so how are you going to maintain a social distance here?
And what about their hygiene as these areas doesn’t have drainage lines itself
leave apart proper toilet blocks! One of my friend (no name please) from
govt & who is part of a squad responsible to make one slum settlement
residents aware about social distance & use of masks & sanitizer, he
was in tears looking at the situation people were living in & who is
responsible for this situation? Well, off-course the builders, some gentleman has
said as, builders make homes so costly that people have to live in these slums!
Agreed, but do think, what makes a builder to sale a home so costly & who
still buys that costly home, can anybody answer it please? Hon PM Sir,
high time for us to demolish the slums & every single illegal building,
please read carefully, I am saying demolish the slums not the people or slum
dwellers & rebuild it in such a way that never anybody has to worry
about spread of virus or any disaster here; please take this subject on your
agenda as no PM ever has touched this nationwide cancer & you can do
it. The police which are so perfectly (read as a times
ruthlessly) abiding the curfew, why can’t they use the same law (read as power)
to curtail as well demolish a slum or illegal structure, that time how come
govt thinks of these poor people & their emotions out break
type things! Today govt is telling slum residents to remain in homes for
their safety then why can’t in a dedicated time span we make them leave the
slum & make a brand new good building & why can’t our we make a
dedicated fund available for this noble cause? And till then at least start a
full-fledged awareness campaign as well give the existing slums basic hygiene
facilities so they will be protected from epidemic. Yet full marks to
every that person who is part of the system for giving hundred percent to fight
this war but...
Today it’s just one virus & look what havoc it has created
making 130 plus crore country at stand still. Speaking about future, what will
hit us next, we may not be able to predict but will we be lucky to survive
again, that depend only on what future we chose to have today, is all I can
tell to the rulers (and citizens) of this Smart City!
--
Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at U-Tube link below..
Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at
Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)
Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way(Click link below)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345
For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below
www.punecorporation.org
Take your issues to Hon PM at link below..
Think Green, Think Life
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave ur name, email id along with ur comment. It will help me to reply ur comment as well improve the blog as per ur suggestions if any... :)
Sanjay