Video: Dinesh Kamath speaks about the popular writers and cartoonists who influenced him to be a writer and cartoonist

Video: Dinesh Kamath speaks about the writers he forgot to mention in the previous video

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (Builders have become politicians) that was published in Newsband

Builders have become politicians

There is quite a huge population of slum dwellers in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. The root causes of this issue are three-fold. First is the unmitigated flow of population to this premier city, second is the lack of affordable housing for the poor and the third and the most important reason is that the Maharashtra politics is dominated by builders lobby. In all the major cities of Maharashtra, builders have become politicians and vice versa and this is true across all political parties. However, one may not misconstrue that all slum-dwellers are below-poverty line people. In fact many of them are quite industrious and economically well off. It is just that land is simply not available here and whatever was available has been grabbed by the politician-builder community. What is needed is the greater spread of the city with faster and efficient transport system, so that population can shift and commute faster.

Slum development is an important issue. But what is being sought to be done is on the platter of slum development, we give a lot of undue benefit to builders and developers and instead of rehabilitating the slumdwellers, there is a lot of population migration in the area concerned. This is a very sensitive subject.

Free houses for the poor are okay on paper but what is the reality? If slum dwellers are accommodated in the vicinity of high rise buildings, most of them are likely to sell their dwellings and move to another slum. This is because basically most of them are so poor that they cannot afford to pay the high monthly maintenance expenses of their new dwellings. Secondly, it is unwise to think of any housing plan for the poor without planning for its funding. A faulty funding plan would invariably jeopardize any housing scheme for the poor.

A foreigner called India a land of slums. It seems we are too much fascinated with this image of ours after 'Slumdog millionaire' got Oscar. Soon we will be one step ahead with an image 'India is a land of plunderers' with corruption malady rampant in every other field.  Corruption is a plague and we need to handle each patient with similar attention and care. The issue of corruption and issue relating to slum problems are both connected.

The problem relating to slums directly relates to public infrastructure and the ability to work and earn money. How can these slum dwellers be rehabilitated.  Help deal with their social grievances, increase public and private spending on infrastructure and get them permanent sustainable jobs; they will find a house for themselves. Is it asking for too much?

Video: Dinesh Kamath speaks about himself

Video: Dinesh Kamath speaks about the film 'Bol Bachchan'

Editor of Newsband Dinesh Kamath's photograph clicked by staff member of Newsband Anil Sharma

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (Slum dwellers need justice) that was published in Newsband

Slum dwellers need justice

Slums in Mumbai need to be rehabilitated. The slum dwellers in Mumbai need stable housing, access to sanitation and quality life since they make up more than half of the city's population. This vast marginalized group lives under a cloud of fear unleashed by vested interests who want to appropriate their land. Mumbai has a huge number of people living in slums. The state government did realize this fact and they set up the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) in 1995 with an emphasis on using the slum lands as a resource. The idea was to rope in private developers and encourage them to redevelop areas by permitting more dwelling units than what the building rules allowed. The excess units were to be sold and the money so mobilized was meant to subsidize reconstruction of slum tenements. This approach appeared well meaning. However, it was blatantly misused, denying the needy the benefit of owning a house even as small as 270 sq. ft.

The SRA adopted improper practices that affected the performance of projects: proper evaluation of builders was not undertaken; dues were not recovered; projects were not properly monitored, resulting in poor construction and delay. As a result, Mumbai has so far rehabilitated only about 15 per cent of the targeted four million slum dwellers, even as the number of people living in slums has crossed 6.5 million.

To solve the problems of the slum dwellers, what is required is total transparency in decision-making, complete disclosure of project details, clear enunciation of specifications and deliverables, undiluted monitoring and periodic public consultation. Slum rehabilitation should be given the topmost priority by the government.

Mumbai is supposed to be the Bollywood capital. But it has most number of slums. Yet we don't see any movie or documentary depicting the truth of the city called Mumbai.

The true state of affairs in other cities like Delhi, Chennai, Kolakata is no better. The system obviously has failed to do justice to slum dwellers. Our system functions in a weird way. The upper authorities consume their share, the middlemen consume theirs and if the resource reaches in the hands of poor the bigger fishes there eat away the share of the smaller ones.

So the authorities should realize that it is the slum dwellers in Mumbai who are worst affected and hence it is necessary for them to take swift action to solve their problems.