BMC Officials run the Slum Racket

Recent report in Times of India points to BMC officials being involved in aiding and abetting slums in Bombay.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, least of all the residents of Bombay.

In a recent conversation with a senior police officer, he remarked, that the Crime Department of the police is actually involved in Crime, similarly the Social Service Branch is involved in Gambling and Prostitution or giving protection to these rackets run all over the city. The Economic Offenses Wing extracts it's pound of flesh from White Collar crime reported to it. Often, case property is divided amongst the players at various levels.

The slum report goes on to detail how the whole racket operates. How migrants come to occupy the slums and live in sub-human conditions and how locations are later converted to commercial use by greasing the right palms.

What is the remedy for such crime?

Why do I call it a crime? It is a crime against all other residents of the city who pay taxes and contribute to the city. Slums on the other hand are a drain on the city. Electricity is stolen to light these houses, water connections are pilfered to supply water to people living in these slums.

All these slums are an encroachment on government or unprotected private land. Government officials along with local corporators, ward officers, et all contribute to mushrooming of slums. They hold more than 60% of the total population of the city pegged at 150 Million according the report published in Times of India. Therefore about 90 (9 Crore) Million people live in slums. If for each slum the average occupancy is 6 persons, then there would exist around 15 (1.5 Crore) Million individual slum homes.

If you take an average transfer rate of 40,000 for creation of a slum home, it would translate to 600 Billion (60,000 Crore) rupees that have been generated from these slums. All this money has been distributed amongst the players ranging from the ward officers, local corporators, local politicians, goons and the underworld.

No wonder no one wants to rock the boat.

These slums also serve as vote-banks for the politicians that have been instrumental in creating these slums in the first place. They provide protection from various government agencies to the residents of the slums who in turn use their votes to keep the leaders in power.

The slums are also result of zoning rules and development rules created by the same ruling class. These rules create artificial scarcity of land by capping the floor to space index (FSI) and creating green zones, coastal zones and a plethora of other rules to reduce land supply. On the other hand they acquire land from their ill-gotten money and reduce to available land for housing. This drives up the land price and in turn house prices. Slums thus indirectly allow the political class to hoard land with the money made from slums.

One solution to the problem could be a radical re-look at FSI and DCR (Development Control Rules) imposed on the city. Another solution could be to dis-enfranchise the residents of all encroached land. This way the politician will not benefit from the vote-banks that they now depend upon and are instrumental in creating in the first place.

A more severe solution would be death penalty for corruption. But then who will bell the cat?

Your comments are invited.

Read the Times of India Report Here

Real Hustle

Yesterday, I went shopping in a mall near Mira Road in suburban Bombay.

My daughter had purchased a garment which she wanted exchanged. Once that was done, we entered Archie's a gift shop located on the ground floor. Here we selected a photo frame and as we were about to pay our way out we noticed a sudden commotion near the payment and packets counter.

On inquiry we learnt that someone had absconded with a bag belonging to another customer. Normally this would be a mistake and the customer would come back and take his right bag but this turned out to be a con job. Here is how it was committed.

The con artist was tailing the group of women who had made a purchase from Croma (an electronics store on the first floor). These women had purchased two mobile phones. The thief had made a purchase of a cheap headphone from the same store at the same time. He ensured that their packing bags were of the same size and type. Once this was done he started tailing his target. The target entered Archie's and handed over their bag for safekeeping and security purpose, the thief did the same. The shop provided both the people with tokens to claim their parcels on the way out.

This is where the con artist used his skills. As soon as he saw that the target group was exiting the store he rushed over to the parcel counter and presented the guard with his token at the same time as the target group did. He then confused the gurard by pointing to the wrong bag and claiming it as his own. As the guard was holding both the tokens and as was being badgered by the con artist to do his job quickly, he handed the bag containing the mobile phones to the con artist.

He disappeared in a jiffy leaving the target with a bag containing the cheap headphone.

You could be target of such a real hustle and may lose your belongings. Be aware and beware.