How limited is the gleaming vision of infra in Mumbai

Urban infra meant services like waste management, water supply, etc. Urbanists have expanded its scope to include digital services too

- SMRUTI KOPPIKAR

Inthe now fully functional underground metro, Aqua Line, you are forced to go through a digital detox for the length of your commute.

ing is considered a part of the city’s new infrastructure. As is Mumbai's, to be precise Navi Mumbai’, spanking new international airport, which, along with other projects, was inaugurated earlier this week. In the exuberant self-congratulations going around since the multiple inaugurations, evidenced also in a panel discussion on a mainstream television channel that | was invited to, the true and complete meaning of urban infrastructure seems to have been lost. Or wilfully forgotten.

In the climate of urbanisation that India has been in during the past decade or two, urban infrastructure has been rather unfortunately reduced to mega, multi-million or multi-billion-rupee, big-ticket physica! projects that can be presented or displayed. An exhibition of such projects has become synonymous with urban development, growth of cities, and some sort of urban progress. Even in this limited vision, the emphasis has been on transport projects and, within this narrow band, on roads and bridges that considerably ease commutes of a certain select class of Mumbaikars.