'Self-compliance will strengthen policing and security': BMC chief Ajoy Mehta shares with Firstpost his vision for Mumbai

Three weeks after a deadly fire at Lower Parel’s Mojo’s Bistro claimed 14 lives on 29 December, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) released a report last week which called for punitive action against the accused and suggested reform measures be put in place to ensure such incidents don’t reoccur. Chief among these was the need to self-regulate: Owners of commercial establishments and businesses would need to ensure all compliances and safety norms are in place.

BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta visited the offices of Firstpost on Monday, 22 January, to shed light on what he meant by self-regulation, and other issues facing the city.

Here are edited excerpts from Mehta’s conversation with Firstpost editors:

On the blaze and the need to self-regulate

What happened was tragic, it shouldn’t have happened. But the need of the hour is to ensure it doesn’t happen again, and to ensure the people who were responsible for it are pulled up.

Going forward, the biggest thrust is going to be on compliance, which has been a weak link, and which will be strengthened. The corporation would give permissions and licences, but monitoring what occurs after these are granted is essential. And the way to go about it is not by having more staff to ensure compliance, but through self-compliance.

Just today, we took a decision to focus on random checks by senior officials. If even once during a random check you find something delinquent, punishment must be quick and telling, so everybody knows it’s better to comply than to wait for someone to check. This game of ‘catch me if you can’ is going to prove expensive for everybody. So we won’t increase staff or intensify monitoring. We don’t want to police people; we want to people to tell us they will comply of their own accord, while we take over the role of advisors.

Laws weren’t made to harass people; they were made after much study, to tell us what is good and what isn’t. For example, in the case of restaurants, it’s the job of experts like architects to educate business owners about the law. They should tell them that if they want restaurants on the roof, they can’t cover it or have open flames. Their staircases should be a minimum of 1.5 metres long. And once you have been advised on this, do they comply or cut corners and flout rules? So there are two parts to compliance: One, to know the rules, and two, to abide by them.

No legal system in the world can run on policing alone. We are all equally obliged to follow the law. I have great faith in our people. I think 95 percent of the people will comply with the law, just 5 percent who won’t. I think we must give the majority a chance to comply proactively. But if anybody doesn’t, the mechanism must be such that we can catch them. We can’t have the attitude of ‘catch me if you can’. If that is the attitude, even the best of laws will not work.

With self-compliance, the punishment also needs to be more stringent, because it operates on the principle of belief. We are suggesting things that will promote honest businesses, and will punish dishonesty.

Making use of IT

Compliance also can’t be one man knocking on everybody’s doors and asking them to comply. We want to computerise the entire process, and you will see it happen in the next 15 to 20 days. So the minute someone is given permission, it’s on the cloud for everybody to see. Details of who was given permission, what violations the officer saw, and the remarks will be up. And if a person was given permission, these violations will be flagged until all compliances are met.

We will also have Unique Identity Database (UID) numbers for all the buildings, like an Aadhaar for buildings. We can now link all permissions: One building was given against this UID number and the history of each permission, who noticed the violations and if they were complied with or not.

Also, as users, you too can trace your file and its movement. You can check when a file moves from Level 1 to Level 2, with what were the comments/suggestions made by Level 1. Nothing will be confidential, and everything will be in the public domain. This is an opportunity for us to improve our processes.

Over congestion

There were strong indicators of Floor Space Index (FSI) violations taking place at Kamala Mills, although one can say this with conviction only once there is a detailed study. But we also found several “additions and alterations” — when you’re allowed something, but you add and alter to make it something else. But this too needs detailed investigation. And thirdly, we found things approved for a particular use that ended up being used as something else. We have sought three months’ additional time to look into these.

For example, there were areas allocated for IT and areas allocated for commercial use. But somewhere along the way, the two got interchanged. We need to study when and how this happened.

Mill land was meant to be developed in such a way that one-third would go to the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), one-third would be developed into open spaces and playgrounds, and the remaining would be given to the mill owner for redevelopment. But they were given a choice. They could either have it split three ways, or go in for a combination of IT and commercial. That choice was always there. We need to study exactly what happened in specific cases to this rule and where it was flouted.

Problem solving

How do you differentiate between people with a genuine complaint and people clogging the system by complaining incessantly? The system has a particular bandwidth to deal with complaints, but will it be used to deal with spam, or will it be used to address genuine grievances?

For example, I apply for a restaurant licence. I comply with everything as per law. But someone makes a complaint against me. The inspector arrives and disrupts my business. He says a complaint has been made, so it needs to be investigated. He checks everything is in place and goes back. But again, there is a complaint. Again the same process is repeated. Customers are wondering: Why are so many complaints taking place against this person?

If we see there is harassment because of vested interests or negligence, we come down heavily on that. But as a system, we need to free up the pipeline. We can’t have the pipeline blocked needlessly.

Chaotic Lower Parel

Mumbai is a commercial city. Any city like this will survive only if there are jobs. Any city will die if there aren’t jobs. And the only way jobs will come to Mumbai is through commercial establishments. We won’t build dams here. Employment will come through knowledge workers and finance professionals. And these need commercial space. And given that it’s an island city, the space available is limited. And even among available space, because of CRZ, mangroves, roads, etc, 60 percent isn’t usable. Of the 40 percent available space, you need houses and offices.

By 2034, we need 8 million more jobs. And this cannot come only from Lower Parel. You need this to be dispersed throughout Mumbai. We have decided to have higher FSIs all over the city, and you can move FSIs anywhere you want. Earlier you could move it only to the North, but not anymore.

Further, we want commercial properties to come up all over, so if someone has a house in Borivali, they  won’t have to travel to Lower Parel, and can find employment in Borivali itself.

And finally, the government is now building the Mumbai Metro. This will ensure travel becomes easier and if you stay somewhere and work somewhere else, you won’t feel the pinch. Most mill land in Mumbai has already been developed. The challenge is to provide enough transportation options to connect these areas.

But we need to always remember to have better compliance. There are bigger, taller cities like New York, but we cannot use the need to grow as an excuse to flout the law. More construction is not a problem. Construction that isn’t keeping with the law is. If you comply with safety norms, it will create congestion, but that isn’t dangerous.

Infrastructure and delays

In Mumbai, there are delays you encounter no matter what the sector. There are delays in roads, water tunnels, pipelines, etc. They are all delayed because of the congestion. Everybody wants water, but nobody wants to move his house to let us dig a tunnel for the pipeline. You want electric cables, but you don’t want footpaths to be dug. If a road needs to be repaired, given how congested the city is, we can’t afford to close even one lane for repairs to be carried out.

Contractor mafia

We clamped down on people flouting the law. We’ve taken action against contractors, we’ve taken action against our own people who were found flouting the law. But the story doesn’t end when you take action against a delinquent. Another delinquent will soon emerge unless we improve the system entirely. If you revamp the system entirely, people can’t manipulate things. There are also archaic laws which can be revamped. For example: One said only contractors who own 100 trucks can get a contract to repair roads. Another said you must own a readymix plant. I don’t know why these rules were put in place, whether it was with connivance or for other mischievous reasons, but we have revamped the entire tending system, and these rules have been changed.

Hawkers

We have created hawking zones because it makes it easy to regulate. Anybody standing outside the zone is liable to be picked up. And everybody will know this. Today, nobody knows what’s part of hawking zones, other than 150 metres from stations, so a lot of people are operating in grey areas. We have a list of hawking zones today, but that’s only the draft list not the final version. We have put this draft in the public domain and invited suggestions and objections from people. A committee will look at the list again before it’s put before the mayor. The names on the draft list are far from being final.

Waste management

It’s perhaps for the first time that the issue of cleanliness has come into focus in such a big way. The nation has taken it up as a programme. Citizens have taken it up, societies have come forward. Children at schools have set up garbage collection buckets in schools. Swachh Bharat has become a people’s movement and the corporation needs to ensure it can deliver what the people want.

At the Deonar garbage dump in Mumbai, we have taken steps to improve safety, such as putting in place gas wells to see that the methane that’s generated can escape and not catch fire. We’ve restricted entry into Deonar. But these are short term measures. In the long-term, we will put in place a waste-to-energy plant here, which will be one of the biggest in the country.

Allowing establishments to operate around the clock

It’s a good thing if you can take the entertainment market or the job market beyond the scope of the 10 to 5.  You will decongest the trains, roads and job market. So it’s a good thing. But you also need to look at safety and security. Compliances also need to be looked at for a variety of other sectors. All these need to be worked out first.

Development of the eastern seaboard

We have had serious discussions with the Port Trust, which owns much of the port authority land in Mumbai. They have drawn up their own plan and they have shared it with us, so we will see how this progresses and how the two plans can be merged.