The Hindu Business Line : Mumbai: Vibrancy its other name

WHERE is Mumbai's Central Business District? Ballard Estate? Nariman Point? Cuffe Parade? No longer, and nobody is sure. Where do the richest, and the most powerful, citizens of the megapolis live? Malabar Hill? Warden Road? No longer, and, again, nobody is sure.

In less than 15 years, Mumbai's economic geography has changed. South Mumbai is no longer the happening place. The centre of the metropolis has shifted north; but not to any particular alternative. The real Mumbai, the Business Mumbai, is now all over the city, and people of Mumbai, the real people, are everywhere.

It did not happen quite as the Mandarins of Sachivalaya had envisaged when they gave CIDCO the mandate to develop New Bombay. Government initiatives did, indeed, play some role in the decentralisation process. But it happened because, as always, economics wanted it so. And, it happened largely in a way that businesses saw it fit to happen.

In the early 1990s, real-estate prices in South Mumbai touched levels which only a criminal rate of return on investments could justify the location.

Then came the liberalisation of the economy, which started shaving off the bottomline of imprudent businesses.

Then followed the boom in the `sunrise' industries — information technology, entertainment, and communications — all of which spent too much on manpower and could not sustain high real-estate costs as an additional risk factor.

Mumbai's economy has traditionally centred around the port and finance. The basic triggers for change therefore had to come from these businesses.

The port at Nhava Sheva was a major trigger. A large number of cargo-related businesses found it attractive to shift their operations from Ballard Estate to the scene of action. By this time, the Sahar International Airport was also taking off. So, air-cargo businesses began concentrating around Andheri.

The five-star hotels that have sprung up around there are not just tourism related, they are as much for the business traveller and the noveu riche of the suburbia.

The financial institutions set off the business relocation to the Bandra-Kurla Complex.

The Bombay Stock Exchange did not move there. But the Grand Old Lady of Dalal Street had, by this time, already surrendered her clout to the ultra-modern National Stock Exchange at Worli, and electronic trading had almost wiped out the premium on "being there".

The State Government supported the development of the Bandra-Kurla area by moving a large number of its offices. The Reserve Bank of India and the Income Tax Department too set up major establishments there, while the Labour Court moved nearby from Tardeo. The Diamond Bourse, originally envisaged at N.S. Patkar Marg (formerly Hughes Road) near Opera House, is now set in Bandra-Kurla.

Another major move away from South Mumbai was the shifting of some of the wholesale markets to New Bombay. Over a very short period, the steel and fruits and vegetables markets, originally in the extremely congested Crawford Market area, shifted out of the city. Both these moves were intended to decongest that part of the city. The problem has not ended, and neither has the `move out' story.

The other new hub of business activity in Mumbai is the Andheri-Versova cluster, on either side of the Western Railway tracks.

The eastern side of Andheri has become the throbbing centre for information technology companies. The western side has become the home of the entertainment industry, with attendant services.

This was a predictable development because the Film City was developed close in Goregaon on the eastern side of the railway line, and the western suburbs of Bandra-Khar-Santacruz-Juhu have been, for long, home to workers in the film industry. While the traditional film industry may not be in great financial health, the television boom has reshaped this business, and brought unimaginable prosperity.

The last major business diffusion story is the re-development of the `smoke-stack' property in the Lalbaug-Lower Parel-Sewree in central Bombay.

With a little bit of help from government, and certain other quarters, many defunct textile mills have reincarnated into swank business centres, and home to IT, retailing, banking, entertainment, newspaper publishing and advertising companies.

Malls and self-contained complexes and lifestyle stores leave the oldies gaping at the infusion of space in the otherwise compressed city. They have the advantage of being close to South Mumbai. But they come the with `infra-dig' tag, which their yuppie executives neutralise by calling the area `Upper Worli'. When economics triumphs, semantics will follow. The magnitude of this change has led a lot of people to speak of a boom in Mumbai's fortunes.

This, however, seems like an illusion. A Member of Parliament elected from Mumbai was heard saying on television last week that the city's economy is growing only at 2.5-3 per cent a year while the economy is growing at over 8 per cent.

Apparently, then, Mumbai is merely reorganising itself. And, this effort is indeed being helped by the economic environment, and several efforts by the local authorities to aid the process.

People move too

Relocation of businesses has meant relocation of residences as well, and on equally a large scale. This was necessitated by the unsustainable rise in expenditure on the commute between home and work; the time loss also played a deciding role. Large-scale relocation became possible because of the revival of the leave-and-licence system, and the sinking cost of housing finance. Making travel in Mumbai a pleasure is an impossiblity.

But the reorganisation of traffic and the investments in flyovers have certainly eased the situation in the city which has the highest automobile density in the country.

The relocation of people was also helped by the revolutionary improvement in the city's communications infrastructure. A simple convenience like the ATM cut out a lot of travel to bank branches. Business and living have both become less location sensitive. As people relocate on a large scale, they create a demand for recreational services and supplies. Thus, every prosperous suburb is now choc-a-bloc with restaurants, shopping complexes, and entertainment centres as good as in South Mumbai. Some might even argue that the quality of life in the prosperous suburbs is now far superior to that in South Bombay. This may not yet be entirely true.

Until a few years ago, the western suburbs had only one multi-speciality hospital — the Nanavati at Santacruz. Today, there is also the Lilavati at Bandra West.

But, beyond this, and especially in the central suburbs, there is no hospital with comparable facilities. Quality educational facilities are, likewise, still concentrated in the older pockets of prosperity — south of Juhu and on the western side of the Western Railway line.

Disparities remain substantial even today. But the power of economics will not leave them untouched for long. Livability will follow people and their prosperity.

The reality of Mumbai is that it is no longer attracting any large flow of people from other cities. The reason again is economic. The cost of entry into Mumbai has already become prohibitive, except for the most affluent who, in any case, are few and do not strain the city's infrastructure.

Mumbai may no longer be the boom city. But it has the time and the resources to reorganise itself, and is doing so with its characteristic gusto and prudence.

(The author is a Mumbai-based freelancer.)