In a bid to recapture Mumbai's glory, McKinsey & Company presented a proposal to Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Monday evening.
On the occasion, Ranjit Pandit, Managing Director, McKinsey & Co, said: "The most important thing to bring back Mumbai to its past glory is political will and personal attention. This is happening in New Delhi, as Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is paying personal attention. In Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Chandrababu Naidu and S M Krishna are putting their best effort to improve their state. So similar attention is needed for Mumbai city."
Pandit told the audience that Mumbai was growing slower than Maharashtra and both Mumbai and Maharashtra were growing slower than the rest of India.
"We, therefore, need immediate attention to solve this problem, otherwise this city can come to brink. Mumbai needs quantum jump of growth to compete with global cities and incremental jump won't be enough," he said.
Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who was also present, said he was happy to see the corporate world getting involved in solving the city's problems.
"I was the mayor of this city for two terms and I found that whenever I tried to do something good, political opponents used to make a hue and cry. So, I feel that if corporate get involved then the city will benefit tremendously."
Bhujbal was very critical of environmental groups and said they were creating hurdles in many developmental projects.
"In Dubai there are constructing in the midst of sea. But here when we try to develop such projects the environmental groups create hurdles and bring notices from courts. Some of these environment groups are not even properly qualified to raise objections, but they just want to create problems for development," added Bhujbal.
The chief minister announced that Sanjay Ubale, one of his officers, would take charge of Mumbai and report directly to the chief secretary on development issues.
"I feel there are three Ps needed for the development of the city: people, political will and policies. If we are strong on all these three Ps we will see that this city's growth will make leaps and bounds," said Shinde.
He, however, reminded the audience that Mumbai's work ethic was one of the best in the country and that a day after the August 25 twin blasts, people attended office.
"One of the business magazines recently wrote that Mumbai was the best city to do business because of its peoples' professional approach and work culture. We need to do more and we will see to it that this city regains its glory," he added.
