Mumbai belongs to India, says 'Marathi' Sachin
Mumbai belongs to all of India: Mukesh Ambani
Will protect north Indians in Mumbai: RSS
Mumbai belongs to all of India: Chidambaram
From Master-Blasters to Richest Industrialist, and Nationalist orgainsation to Central govt ministers, everybody is behind Mumbai, and in name of National Integration & Constituational rights claiming 'Mumbai belongs to All'. But... does anybody bothers to ask Mumbai & Mumbaikars what they feel about it? Does Mumbai wants more people, or rather can it sustain more incoming population? Would it be able to provide basic facilities for all new population adding rapidly to city.
Mumbai formed in 18th century has seen rapid growth in last century and is now most populated city in World (List of cities proper by population). According to the 2001 census, the population of Mumbai was 11,914,398. According to extrapolations carried out by the World Gazetteer in 2008, Mumbai has a population of 13,662,885. Such high population is creating huge demands for basic amenities like Housing, Food, Water, Roads, Transport, Drainage. The government is struggling hard to provide all these basic needs to high population. House prices are peak high in Mumbai. Condition seems so worse that Mumbai didn't find place in top 100 cities considered for quality of living (List of cities by quality of living). The deteriorating quality of living is giving rise to Slums. City already hosts largest slums in Asia and estimated population living there could be up to 1 Million! Many illiegal immigrants adding the population number and also create problems about social security & crime. In 2008 crime rate increased by 5.4 per cent.
This was about people living below quality of living standards. Even Middle-class & Upper-class population is suffering from problems like lack of proper housing, educational facility, roads, food & water supply. The local government had to carry out campaign urging people to conserve water. Another major problem that is growing is creating opportunity for employment. Large existing & daily growing population is creating huge demand of employment, and lack of opportunities is creating unemployment, which fuels politics & endangers social harmony, which city has seen in recent times.
So before making statements like 'Mumbai for all', our respected leaders & politicians should try to see the problems Mumbai is facing due to ever growing population. Even state govt had taken good initiative by providing employment opportunities to local population first, but politics succeeded over sensible decision, and government had to withdraw the decision in 'respect' to constitution. Now that state govt in pressure from central govt given free entry for all in Mumbai it should atleast put warning boards at city entrance like -
"Welcome to Mumbai, as per constitutional right nobody can stop you from coming, but don't ask for house as we have no more space to build house for you. And yes... also try to manage without water as we are having huge shortage of water supply (even Master Blaster said that on TV). Welcome again. Mumbai belongs to ALL".
