This will take real guts: Corona cases increasing in India, and especially Mumbai.
Maharashtra, the state where Mumbai is the capital, has more cases than China now!
Look at the Containment Zones list. The majority are fromover crowded residential areas with common toilets like slums.
Why is no one talking about the most obvious cause of the problem here?
Instead of just clamping a lockdown, why not use this as the best opportunity to get these slums and chawls transformed.
As it is, many of the residents staying in such areas have fled to their villages.
The Government needs to immediately put in action a plan to relocate these high risk people. Then they need demolish all these unsanitary dwellings. Provide prefabricated rapidly scalable multi-storeyed modular homes with toilet facilities for these residents. This way the area will become habitable and open up green spaces too.
Don’t the slum dwellers [those legally eligible, of course] have a right to live with dignity and basic health safety? ! Mumbai is the Commercial capital of India for Gods sake!
If there is a will there is a way!
Does anybody have the guts to do this?
Why should the Healthcare system alone handle the mess created by poor infrastructure and corrupt networks which have caused such overcrowded slums to exist? The answer is not just to increase funding for Healthcare, but to provide basic amenities to the poor and marginalised.
At a fraction of the cost of expensive Hospitals, one can provice sanitary living conditions that will not only help for preventing Corona but a host of other diseases liek TB, Dengue, Malaria, Dysentry etc.
And if you say you do not want to give these people free houses, fine. Would you rather see your tax money being spent on costly treatments, Hospitals, and sops for the economically affected industries?
The BMC, MMRDA, Local politicians, and people must join hands and work towards this solution or any other way to ensure a dignified living for the marginalised. I believe they are precious people in God’s eyes and have been serving the city since ages.
Everything else we do to tackle this Corona crisis, and many other communicable diseases, is only like treating a leaking tap by mopping the floor!
I am writing this as a Physician working in a Hospital in North Mumbai. Our team of frontline COVID-19 warriors face this reality daily. Increasing number of cases are coming from areas around, largely from chawls and slums. I really hope people staying in such conditions have a real chance to live in homes with self contained basic toilet facilities in 2020!
Love, power and a sound mind 