Central Hall – Reboot Development?

Mumbai: Apart from the socio-economic damage the COVID-19 pandemic has caused, it has also forced us to rethink not just the way we govern ourselves, but also need to rethink our development policies and priorities.

We do not say here that let us go back to reinventing the wheel as it were. But surely, worldwide the pandemic has shown that even the best of the medical and health care facilities simply crumbled under the weight and pressure of the pandemic.

The pandemic has exposed the woefully inadequate governance and administration that we have. Be it public health infrastructure, our disaster management responses, urban town planning, civic infrastructure, social behavior, public transport and the economy in general, the pandemic has exposed our short-comings very badly.

One thing that has kept our economy still going on, although somewhat slowly, is our informal economy – often referred to as the street commerce or street economy. Our ability of finding ways and means of survival and overcoming a crisis has kept us going.

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But the same cannot be said to be true of our politicians and the bureaucracy which still deal in traditional economic terms, theories, hypothesis and solutions. Have the traditional ways and methods of planning and development been inadequate?

The pandemic has brutally exposed the short-comings that we have in our medical and health care system. Until now the health care system was being looked down upon for the quality of infrastructure it had, the quality of service it had to offer and the all pervasive corruption that has afflicted it. The system was never meant to, or designed to cater to the needs of all the sections of the society. Even in a country like USA, the health care system leaves out the homeless population.

Another area that our planning has been exposed is urban town planning. As the pandemic plays havoc in densely crowded or populated areas, towns and cities, and metropolis like Mumbai, it has seriously called into question our plans and policies of slum redevelopment, urban renewal, public sanitation, public transportation amongst other things.

It certainly has given us the opportunity for us to have a second look at our ‘Smart Cities’ concept. Our ruling class has never thought of emergency responses when it comes to natural or man-made disasters like – war, earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones, nuclear attacks, pandemics and our social responses in dealing with them.

Countries like Japan and Singapore have been able to contain the fallout of the pandemic is because they have a well drilled social emergency response plan in place wherein the people know exactly what needs to be done and what is expected of them when faced with such situations. As the situation in Bandra or in New Delhi has shown, our governments have never thought of setting up quarantine centers, bomb shelters, hurricane shelters or for that matter shelters for the homeless or migrant labourers.

Our delivery system too is woefully inadequate and often crumbles, especially when it comes to fixing our priorities in supply of essential goods and services. There is no accountability and time bound deliverability. The supply chain, the storage facilities from the farm to the shop floor are found wanting. The law enforcement is often found wanting which is why people are still found defying the lockdown orders.

The pandemic has also put in question our social behavior and our social responses to such crisis. The defiance of the lockdown or taking it too casually in some sections of our society has been because of the lack of understanding our own social and civic responsibilities. We have only taken our fundamental rights and freedoms seriously, not our fundamental duties and responsibilities that go along with it. They never have been enforced.

Hope the our rulers realize that in order for their own survival and the survival of their subjects, they need to redraw their policies, programs and ensure that they are implemented in a time bound manner. Besides holding the guilty accountable, what really is needed a coherent response and relook at our development model. It surely needs a Reboot, if not a course correction.