Maj. Gen. C K Karumbaya (retd.) would like to see Mysore go the Singapore way. He reckons that any fresh development in the city should be on a ‘vertical’ mode. As the general put it, it is time Mysoreans got used to living in high-rise apartments. Building bye-laws should be amended to permit 30-storey buildings. He has put his thoughts in a memo to MUDA, though he doubts that MUDA, in its present format, has the capability to deliver – ‘I feel that MUDA, headed by a politician and staffed by bureaucrats with little expertise is unequal to the task’. (Deccan Herald).
From what we hear of the experience of another retired major-general (Vombatkere) our officialdom is somewhat hard of hearing. We can let the memo languish in an office file. Gen.Karumbaya deserves a hearing and his ideas merit a debate, a full-fledged talk-shop treatment. It is time we involved academics in driving a debate on issues of civic concerns. I have in mind SDM Institute of Management Development, which hosted, what they call, a ‘biz-fest’ over the weekend.
Holding a talk-fest on Mysore would give local MBA students experience in event management; and the b-school faculty, an opportunity to be involved in the city affairs. For the talk-fest they could adopt the group sessions format. The b-school could hold the ‘do’ on a weekend, spread over four sessions, to which they could invite 50-odd people – from local business community, chamber of commerce, NGOs, ecologists, professionals, theatre people, writers. The host school could select a delegation of 50 students and faculty members, and also those from other notable academic institutions. The student delegates and invitees could split themselves into groups of 20 each that would go into thematic group sessions. The topics could be:
1) Which way, Mysore? Would it be Bangalore or Singapore way?
2) Can we afford to give up prime real estate for heritage conservation?
3) Tourism: Thinking beyond Dasara
4) Civic activism or Saving Mysore from its NGOs?
5) The Mysorean mindset and out-of-the-box solutions.
Maj. Gen. Karumbaya (retd) who has been president of some cantonment boards has hands-on experience in matters of town planning and development. His request to MUDA is: Put on hold all citiy expansion plans till a strategy is debated and decided on.
incidentally, a minor slip in my earlier post totally altered the meaning. The relevant sentence should read - 'we can't let the general's memo languish in an office file.
I do agree that its a high time we need to look into the other cities like Singapore which have become famous for its cleaniness, providing potable water, good public transport and of course the Scientific way in solving housing problem. In fact we, the apartment builders in Mysore along with Builders Association of India,Mysore chapter wish to propose to the Govt to allow high rise building like any other developed cities around the world.We welcome you all in providing us your support and advice. Interested person can contact me on 9844029248.
I've been to Singapore 5 times since my first visit in 1984 till 2004 and stayed for a month on one occassion. You can't make Mysore into Singapore simply by having high rise buildings. Singapore was planned well, new Mysore is not and one can't change things with a magic wand.
I would think that perhaps high rise buildings are a good idea and I don't think heritage tag given to Mysore will be adversely affected unless heritage buildings are torn down to make these high rises. Singapore has not done that, they've kept the heritage part intact. There are high rises and there are heritage buildings side by side. Opened in 1887, the Raffles Hotel is a fine example of British architecture in the middle of modern Singapore (and perhaps today the pricyest hotel in Singapore). There has to be lots of space for implementing some things like a mass rapid transit system. Mysore is narrow and cramped. The maximum we can do to copy Singapore is in reducing the garbage accumulation, stop people from littering and spitting everywhere, keep it plastic free and so on, does the MCC have such a foresight or the will? Thats going to take some doing. They have this kind of culture of cleanliness going in Singapore since Singapore's early days and we got this culture of littering and "don't care" attitude for a long time. I agree with Maj Gen Karumbaya that all MUDA plans must be put on hold till a think tank of experts sit down, debate and plan out a proper growth pattern for the city.
There's one thing that gets me, why do we have to make a Shanghai out of Mumbai, a Kuala Lumpur out of Bangalore and now a Singapore out of Mysore?? Why can't we evolve our own system without the need to copy some one else or be some one we are clearly not?
I have seen (yes there are other cities) a lot cleaner and better organized than Singapore without the high rises, by the way, and that is Reykjavic (Iceland capital) is one of them, I've been there three times. Why should we try and make Rajkot into Reykjavic. Get my drift? Thats the only thing I found unecessary in Gen Karumbaya's speech. Lets bee ourselves, a cleaner and better version.
Choices about a city's development require a clear mapping of resources required to offer a desirable quality of life to current and future residents and visitors.These include basic amenities such as access,transport,water,waste management,spaces for residential,retail and commercial activity,education,and health.Recreation,entertainment,preservation of heritage and living traditions need to be factored in.(There is a nice feature in the 16th Jan issue of Outlook describing Mysore as a new Yoga hub based on the legacy of Pattabhi Jois).
The National Urban renewal Mission has well defined guidelines on how cities can access grants from the Urban Development Ministry.The Bangalore Task Force, Bombay First and other voluntary associations have tried to get a larger level of citizens' participation as well as transparency in the responsibilities and accountability of civic bodies.In Delhi Fuad Lokhandwala through his organisation Flumes brought about a paradigm shift in the provision of public conveniences and garbage disposal.
So you may like to structure your debate in 1) defining desirable quality of life 2) resources required for delivering public utilities to offer the desired qualities 3) the means to arrive at those resources including better utilisation of existing resources ,accessing available grants and subsidies, and raising addictional resources through creative mechanisms.4) sharing best practise from elsewhere 5)the measurement and evaluation criteria to ascertain the outcome of your deliberations and action thereafter.
Without this framework, it becomes at best a stimulating debate which is regarded as an end itself with participants pontifcating for the rest of their lives about the wondeful suggestions they made and bemoaning the fact that nobody acted on them.
I am not sure what he ment by 'Vertical Growth'. If we have even 5 houses in a 40x60 site where there would have been only one house, the number of houses in our city simply multiplies by 5. That means more cars more vendors, more electricity etc., All this is ok but I wonder how the city can cope with the sewage that would be using the existing network which obviously is not designed for 5 times what they are ment to be designed.
