The Helplessness of Being a Citizen of Mumbai

I am born in Mumbai and have seen it from the 1960s grow into a self-disciplined cosmopolitan city of which we could be proud despite packed trains and crowded roads, to its current gradual degradation into the worst large city in India. I travel all over India, and I make this statement with all the humility at my command. We Mumbaikars are cheered on with the tag of ‘Undying spirit of Mumbai.” I now treat it as an insult to the helpless citizens who can do nothing but live crushed around by the densest population and an administration that doesn’t care a damn about its citizens.


Gokhale railway bridge was constructed in 1975. This is one of the major connecting bridges on the western side of Mumbai. It had a major accident when a part of it caved in the year 2018. It was opened partially after a few weeks. Since, then it was used only partially for four years, putting citizens in the big inconvenience of traffic jams and huge waste of time.

During this time, an additional connecting flyover work began from the western express highway junction, called Gold Spot junction. That work is still not complete but is about to be after years of inconvenience with third-rate service road full of cracks and potholes around the construction which nobody ever repaired. Just as we hoping to see this flyover getting connected to the railway bridge to end our miseries, a conscientious MLA Mr. Amit Satam, considered one of the best MLAs of Mumbai sent out a letter to BMS and Railways telling them that the Gokhale Bridge was in a precarious condition and it needed to be shut down, lest citizens lose their lives in another imminently collapse. The BMC, without any audit of the bridge shut down the bridge with alacrity. The railways were not sought out, were not asked to present their report of safety of the bridge!

What were the railways doing all these years? What was BMC doing all these years? What was our MLA doing all these years? Why was railways bridge which collapsed partially was not repaired properly; why no one thought about rebuilding the bridge while the additional flyover was being constructed? Nobody has asked these questions, yet. We always wonder why the newly built bridges need constant repairs and have limited life like this bridge that lasted hardly 47 years, while old bridges built by the British 100 years back are still serving effortlessly with minor repairs?

For years, Mumbai has been fleeced with taxes. Till recently, it was the biggest contributor to the central kitty and the state government. Still, it always got the least fund allocation. It was like a washerman’s donkey who serves the master silently and is treated with contempt. Then came Devendra Fadnavis and he decided that enough is enough. And, we had a slew of new projects with metro lines, causeway and big bridge across the bay. It was biggest ever investment in infrastructure after independence for Mumbai.

Entire Mumbai was dug up but we happily bore the brunt waiting for a better tomorrow when we could travel by metros and avoid being crushed in sweaty locals and horribly potholed road. But we had to suffer another period of delays with MVA taking over the state that had a prince who worried more about the club class friends than about the average Mumbaikar. His father’s party had ruled over Mumbai for 30 years through BMC and presided over its decline with callous rule.

In the interregnum, we had worst kind of diversions and service roads where metro lines were being laid out. Nowhere in India (forget world) will you find such shabby diversions with unending potholes, uneven barriers, some dangerously protruding, with no repairs or traffic police support. JVLR is ideal example of this callousness. Road from where the Seepz-Colaba metro starts, is another example of utter contempt for the citizens of Mumbai. It is clear to any conscious driver that 50% of our traffic jams are result of poor roads and horrible potholes. No repaired road will have a clean joint. It will have one to five feet bad patch so you can appreciate how blessed you are with resurfaced road, thanks to your corporator and contractor.

We have BMC corporators who have foolish passion for barricading footpaths with railings, to make them safe havens for food stalls, beggars, shops etc where no pedestrian dare walk as there is no opening where he/she can come out in case of a shop shutting the footpath. Only ones who benefit are corporators and contractors. Potholes have become a money-making racket. BMC will first make bad roads with huge cuts, then give contracts to third rate contractors who fill potholes with bricks or with ready tar mix that are supposed to be levelled by our own vehicles as no road rollers used.

10 storied buildings are being allowed indiscriminately on 20 feet or 30 ft roads on 500-1000 sq mt plots without any ‘setback’ that is widening of the road. A plot that had 2 families and one car now has 10 homes and twenty cars. Drainage systems have not been expanded. Huge skyrises are being built in Parel belt that has poor drainage and narrow roads. We are already watching choked roads there and flooding even at the smallest hint of rains.
Where will all this lead to? Who benefits – politicians and bureaucrats who passed the orders for such unhealthy growth. All we honest citizens can do is write letters, emails, vote for a candidate who ‘might’ do something but ends up a puppet in various committees of the BMC.

And now this Andheri bridge is an added insult to injury. Will Mumbai tax-paying citizens ever get some respect? Will the Mumbai citizen ever get a compassionate caring government and minister? I have lost hope. Rajiv Gandhi had called Kolkata a ‘dying city’, now Mumbai is the proud bearer of this epitaph.

P.S. Just as this article was getting published, came to know that a friend fractured his leg while walking on the road, trying to negotiate a pothole. 10 years back, an employee of mine fractured her leg on Western Express-Andheri Kurla road, under the flyover similarly. That crossing is still a potholed spectacle. Everyday some two wheeler rider loses life or limb over these potholes. For us Mumbaikars, nothing has changed, only worsened.