Election Diary -Day 4

Cities of dreams or disasters-in-waiting? Cong-NCP fail to keep up with urbanization growth...More in today’s election diary, Day 4

     Going back to one’s roots is always an emotional experience. I was in Solpaur yesterday- a city where I grew up and began my journey with ABVP.  Solapur has many places that connect me to the past. How I wished after twenty years that I left the city, it also showed me the promise for the future.  

      Solapur was once a very prosperous city. It was also one of the first few cities in the country to have a Municipal corporation after independence. Even during the freedom struggle, the city gave its four sons to the nation. Solapur is also known as a pilgrimage city due to important religious places such as Pandharpur, Tulajapur and Akkalkot in its close vicinity. It is also important due to its geographical location connecting three states Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

     Politically, the city has always been a stronghold of Congress- NCP. Even in 1977 during emergency, when the mood of the country was against Congress, a congress MP was elected from Solapur. Solpaur has mostly had Congress-NCP representatives and that explains its dismal state! We had a Finance Minister, Union Home Minister and Chief Ministers from here but has that helped anyway?   

       The city that once woke up to the lively hustle-bustle of textile mills, today wakes up to cries of its children. Many families have lost their livelihoods with massive shut-downs of mills that should have been replaced by alternative employment options. A millworker who once had a secured future; today rides an auto or has turned a vegetable vendor or migrates to bigger cities as the last resort. As a city, Solapur bears the heart-wrenching signs of a total lack of planning and years of neglect by the government. Come to think of it, Solapur is just a symbol of Congress- NCP’s mismanagement and visionless government.  

     But the problem Solapur faces as a city is not an isolated one. With the sizeable migration flocking to cities, all big cities in Maharashtra bear a lot of infrastructure load, hike in unemployment and crimes, pollution etc. The government neither had any political will nor any long-term vision to tackle the challenges of the modern world. Town planning has never been on its agenda even though the rate of urbanisation in the state is as high as 44%. As a result, cities have grown in all directions without a good infrastructure in place. Due to government’s lack of vision and robust policies for big cities, even basic amenities feel like luxuries. Congress-NCP government’s prime contribution to cities is misuse of power and mismanagement of the reserved plots, creating many Adarsh-like buildings.

      But enough is enough now. The time has come to demand our basic rights as city-dwellers. Unless we uproot the corrupt Congress-NCP rule we cannot rebuild our cities. Cities that will be pride of prosperous Maharashtra and modern India...