I remember, few years earlier, I read an article which stated that few years down the lane Mumbai would be the next Shanghai. The thought of Mumbai being compared to Shanghai came to my mind first when I saw the new escalators started on Thane railway station. As we all are aware of, Mumbai locals being the life line of Mumbai city, almost 7.24 million people commute daily in these locals. This is almost a one third of Shanghai’s population. Shanghai’s permanent population as on Dec 2012 is around 23.9 million (source: worldpopulationreview.com). Enough of numbers, the primary thing that we as Mumbaikars should ponder upon before dreaming of Mumbai becoming Shanghai, is that  are we really upto the mark when it comes to infrastructure? Although we are putting in efforts to build such infrastructure, but do we have the capacity to sustain it?

Now that I highlighted some stats on number of commuters travelling daily in local trains, it is evidently understood that, the primary mode of transportation for us Mumbaikars is local trains. We proudly boast about the connectivity provided by Mumbai locals, but is it enough to compare it with the tube services that are currently in place in Shanghai? I mean if you are dreaming of turning Mumbai into Shanghai, then the most important thing which you need to look into is the infrastructure which we currently have in our Suburban Railways (railways being the life line of Mumbai city, I have considered railways as the comparative factor).

Let me dig deep into our railways & highlight another piece of stats. According to survey conducted by Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC), Thane emerged as the most crowded station followed by CST in Mumbai across all the three suburban routes in Mumbai. Thane handles as many as 6.54 lakh passengers daily. Every day, more than 1,000 trains pass through Thane, which has 10 platforms catering to two corridors each for the fast and slow tracks and the Trans-harbour network. Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) still accounts for several footfalls with 6.36 lakh commuters, followed by Kurla and Kalyan with 3.81 lakh and 3.60 lakh passengers daily. Other crowded stations on Central Railway are Dadar with 2.90 lakh passengers followed by Dombivli with 2.83 lakh passengers.

Now the names of key destinations that came out of these statistics are Thane, Kurla, Kalyan, CST, Dadar and Dombivli. Now out of these stations, how many stations are really well equipped in terms of infrastructure? Keeping aside the use of modern technology  in the infrastructure, and considering the basic infrastructure facilities such as proper seating places, hygienic toilets, vending machines, the indicators etc. , how much of this is in proper place at our busiest stations? How much of these facilities are really being provided by these railway stations on each & every platform? I think hardly one or two stations would meet the criteria of 2-3 features listed above. And we want to make Mumbai as the next Shanghai! I don’t deny the fact that it is not possible, in fact, connectivity being our key strength, if we work on these basic problems first, Mumbai can set a perfect example for cities like Shanghai, New York etc.

Now what we really should concentrate besides these basic facilities is providing state of the art facilities atleast on the major stations which came out in the survey. When I say state of the art, does not necessarily have to be a major transformation in terms of the platform. It can be as simple as having an escalator on every of these platforms. As mentioned earlier, the stimulus event behind writing this blog was incorporating the new escalators on Thane station. When I first saw them, I was quite happy thinking that this could be the first step towards developing infrastructure. I assumed that the idea of escalator was bought up by MRVC immediately after the astonishing survey results. Quite gladly, I stepped on those escalators looking at other people, thinking that after all the dream of turning Mumbai into Shanghai can surely be turned into a reality as first step towards developing infrastructure was taken. After a month or so, I again got down at Thane station and to my horror I saw that the escalators are no longer working. I asked the maintenance guy standing over there the reason for these escalators not operating. He calmly answered saying that due to overload it stopped working a week back, however since then no authority has bothered to repair these escalators & people are now used to walking up as they do on the normal stairs. I was taken aback for few seconds. I quickly realized that sustaining or maintaining the existing infrastructure is as important as developing one; and the kind of laid back attitude that our authority has, it would be nearly impossible to sustain such infrastructure.

Another lightning that struck me was when I inquired about whether or not the escalators would be incorporated on other stations such as Dadar, Kalyan etc. and in return the authorities replied saying who will get into all this mess. This shocking reply of the authorities shattered atleast my dreams of seeing Mumbai turned into Shanghai. The problem lies in all the 3 major areas: Developing Infrastructure; Maintaining existing infrastructure & most importantly ignorant attitude of authorities towards the infrastructure. All these three areas are a major hurdle in our progress path & something quick should be done about these problems in order to see those dreams of converting Mumbai into Shanghai.

Just by constructing tall towers or skyscrapers will not result in this huge transformation. What we really need to do is improve upon the areas where our strengths lie. Railways in Mumbai are like the veins spread across the human body. How much ever you pretty you try to look from the outside, but if there is impure blood flowing in your veins then it will still reflect the paleness on your face. Then all the makeup or transformation which you have done on your face would be of no use. This is what is happening with ‘

Amchi Mumbai’. We are not concentrating on our key strength, our life line i.e. our railways. If the authorities take the right ownership and are able to develop and maintain such infrastructure, then there will be no stopping of Mumbai  surpassing the city of Shanghai.