The Saki Vihar Road and Saki Naka include my regular road to the current client . . . And probably the best places to see the MUIP (Mumbai Urban Infrastructure Project) project in full swing. This project started by the Deshmukh government aims to create an infrastructure akin to Shanghai in Mumbai. I was most enthused when I had first heard of this project but now that the project is halfway and heading towards Phase I completion, it has turned out to be a mere mirage!
Why weren't the roads repaired? Hell! No. They very much were. Oh! So the new roads also lack quality. No - they are fantastic - all cement roads able of lasting a 50 years if not 100. Then?? In spite of the roads being widened and rebuilt the traffic situation has not improved a bit. In some areas it has worsened.
Reason?? Lack of Civic sense. All along the Saki-Vihar road you will find vehicles parked. Almost 50% of the width i.e. 1 lane is eaten up by stationary vehicles parked all along. In places where the vehicles are not parked one finds the slum dwellers using the road as a verandah of sorts - parking chairs and sitting smoking beedis.
It is not only uneducated slum dwellers or truck drivers who are guilty of misusing the road. Larson & Toubro(L&T) has been misusing the road as its parking ground since time immemorial. The company has acres of fallow land including kilometers of road in its factory campus - but still the corporate chooses to use public land for its private parking. Add to this the Opel Corsa's, Honda City's and Toyota Camry's from the top bosses of the company - the engineering giants plant in Powai is more a nuisance than an asset! Will you ever find a better example of corporate social irresponsibility ???
Shanghai Dreams of the CM may never come true if the people of this land are not taught CIVIC SENSE! I sincerely feel that social activists should work to encourage civic sense in people rather than protest against ill treatment of stray dogs and rights of cows!