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Lesson from Mumbai: India's cities are dangerously ill-prepared to tackle nature's fury. Here's what India's CEOs think of her urban hell-holes. By Supriya Shrinate Thirty-nine inches of rainfall on July 26 this year left the city of Mumbai, India's financial capital, completely paralysed. Normal life was thrown out of gear and business came to a stand still. According to Business Today's estimates, the total loss due to the rains in Mumbai this year would be about Rs 20,000 crore. However, well before Mumbai's monsoon mania, inadequate and poor urban infrastructure was evident when the tsunami hit the eastern coast last year. A city like Chennai had problems in the area of drainage and severe water shortages to deal with. While the debate about crumbling infrastructure in the cities hots up, a globally competitive India Inc. continues to live with inadequate urban infrastructure back home. The cities remain ignored even as the government continues to woo the rural vote bank. The truth is that most Indian cities are dangerously ill prepared to meet any disaster, be it an act of nature or man made issues like power and water shortage, traffic management and lawlessness that expose the urban reality. However, the impact is more at a psychological level. Asserts Vikram Talwar, Vice Chairman and CEO, Exl Service about the floods in Mumbai, "It makes people wonder whether India is really robust enough." In fact, Luis Miranda, President and CEO, IDFC Private Equity who spoke over the phone from New York did mention that investors questioned the sad state of infrastructure and the first 10 minutes of all his meetings have been about Mumbai and the devastating floods. One could perhaps live with natural disasters with some scientific business continuity planning but the menace of inefficient transport and power not only means additional cost for most companies but also a huge distraction. "The triple back up for power," according to Ajai Chowdhry, Chairman and CEO, HCL Infosystems, "increases the cost of operations and reduces India's competitive advantage". Others like Bharti Tele-Ventures raise the issue of bad town planning relevant to the telecom industry. Says Manoj Kohli, President Mobility, Bharti Televentures, "Towns are planned unsystematically with a short term perspective, which is a menace when one needs to handle the additional load of population in cities." Concurs A.M. Naik, CMD, Larsen & Toubro, "Most cities have followed no master plan for growth and as a result the infrastructure has not kept pace with expansion resulting in a deluge like Mumbai." While of course there is no denying the fact that the rain was unprecedented in Mumbai this year, there is little denying the fact that drainage made the situation even worse. While at drainage, a Delhi based CEO of a Consumer Durable company reminds this writer of the clogged traffic after a day's rain in the capital. Even in a city like Hyderabad that suffers from ribbon development, with most development happening along the main road and little on the interiors, "The commuting time," according to S Sivakumar, CEO, ITC, IBD "on an average in Hyderabad has doubled in the last one year." So while Indian companies eye the global market, cutting edge research happens here, and the country becomes the back office of the world, urban infrastructure continues to stare India Inc in the face, an issue that needs to be resolved rather soon.
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