at two training institutions in the project area have been kept for farmers' sons, to equip them with technical skills that will help them get industrial jobs. A small number of these boys are already being trained at these institutions.

Another lot of farmers' sons are being trained in motor driving, in a course that started a while ago. The great demand for truck and car drivers in Bombay and elsewhere is a well-known fact, so these trainees will easily secure lucrative em. ployment.

Plans for other courses of this kind are ready, and will go into operation as soon as possible.

Meanwhile a placement service is already in being, and is in touch with industrial employers in Thana as well as in the project area. Jobs have already been found for a small number of persons from the families that are to be displaced.

These are all small steps, but they are a token of the Government's intentions for the welfare of the local people.

But though rehabilitation has started before displacement, there are bound to be many families whose rehabilitation will take some time, several months, perhaps years, after their land is absorbed in the project. Such families will have the opportunity, if the Reserve Bank approves a scheme just sponsored, of depositing with the development authority, at attractive interest rates, the sums they get from the Government for their land. The rates of interest are graded for different land value levels, so that many farmers who avail themselves of the scheme will get, as interest, amounts roughly equal to the net paddy yields they now get from their land. While they earn this interest they will of course be free from the chores of tilling their land, so will be able to take on other employment, earn additional money, and rehabilitate themselves.

The present progress on rehabilitation is by no means spectacular, or even impressive as yet. What is significant, though, is that it has started so far ahead of actual

displacement, and is already gaining mome+ ntum And shortly a mobile medical service will start for the project villages, a foretaste of the kind of medical care that the new city will bring them.

One of the reasons why rehabilitation is not progressing as fast as it could is that some of the villagers have been instructed not to co-operate even with efforts at rehabilitation. To stimulate their hostility Panvel and Uran bandhs have been organi sed. It is a peculiar condition of mind: that prescribes stoppage of work as the principal way of protest, indeed the prin cipal mode of expression.

I have so far dealt with one kind of op position to the new city project. There is another type, a far more sincere and basic that is now opposition, a controversy occupying a good part of the daily papers. This is the criticism which questions the wisdom of having a new city at all.

The question is whether a new city should at all be built so near Bombay, and whether we should not instead try to develop smaller centres like Dabhol in Ratnagiri district, or Janjira in Kolaba district as a counter-magnet to Bombay. Won't the new city draw still more people to the Bombay metropolitan area and thereby worsen the very conditions it is designed to resolve?

This is a plausible criticism, and one that is much less easy to answer conclusively. Dazzling figures and graphs are, alas, not available to expose the fallacy of this view. In fact, there is no way to prove this criticism wrong-I use the word 'prove' in the strict sense that will be acceptable in a law court.

And yet, with great respect to those who advance this criticism, there are a fewcogent submissions for consideration. Consider, for instance the growth of Poona in recent years. The Pimpri-Chinch vad area is nearly full of industries, and has created a large number of new jobs. Poona has grown, in the direction of Pimpri, as also in other directions, such as the Nagar road, and the Sholapur road. Nasik too

has begun to grow. Have any of these growths slowed down immigration into Bombay? People are now pouring into our beautiful city faster than ever. If, despite the attractions of Poona, Nasik, Khopoli, the flood of migration into Bombay continues unabated, how can one reasonably expect an urban project in Dabhol or Aurangabad or Janjira to achieve the pur pose of drawing people away Bombay ?

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Thus, if Government were to attempt a large urban project at a greater distance from Bombay, however necessary such a project might be, the flow into Bombay would continue, and might even grow. Offices in Bombay would continue to attract white collar workers in large num. bers, and our city would get more and more crowded, less and less livable.

What is more, the trans-harbour project would in any case grow into an urban settlement, irrespective of what Government might choose to do in other areas. There are three reasons for this:

(1) The new port.

(2) The new bridge across the Thana Creek.

(3) The MIDC industrial belt in the

Thana-Belapur strip, which today
employs 20,000 workers.

Obviously, one cannot have a port at Poona or Nasik or Aurangabad. Bombay port is well past saturation level, and urgently needs relief, which is possible only on the opposite side of the barbour at Nhava Sheva. That site offers even better natural conditions than are available in Bombay, and the developments contemplated will enable the port to handle much larger vessels than Bombay can, vessels that today by-pass Bombay.

With a new modern port and the employment that it entails, and with the increased accessibility that the Thana Creek bri. dge will bring about, can there be any doubt that a vast population will be attracted to the area? The choice for the project area consequently is between (1) an unplanned, squalid urban sprawl caused by the port and the Thana-Belapur indust

rial belt, and (2) a planned new city. Can the choice remain doubtful?

If the choice is clear, the other alternative posed by the critics is easily disposed of. That alternative is to develop the suburbs of Bombay, because at a tolerable density, the entire population predicted for the Bombay metropolitan region can be squeezed into the 169-square mile area Greater Bombay new occupies. Since as we have seen, the new city area is going todevelop in any case, this suburban development suggestion is not a rational alters native. Someone has worked out, that at the same density rate that this proposal involves, the area of Maharashtra State can accommodate the entire world population. An inviting prospect.

Finally, let us look at the objectives of the New Bombay project. They are: (1) To reduce the pressure of population

on Greater Bombay by creating an attractive urban area in the land across Bombay harbour.

(a) to absorb Bombay's excess popul ation.

(b) to absorb immigrants who would otherwise have come to Bombay.

(2) To support Statewide location poli cies which will lead eventually to an efficient and rational distribution of industries over the State, and to a balanced development of urban centres in the hinterland.

(3) To provide physical and social services which raise living standards, and reduce the disparities in amenities available to different sections of the population.

(4) To provide an environment which permits the new city's citizen to live a full life, free in so far as this is possible of the physical and social tensions which are commonly associ ated with urban living.

These are ambitious and difficult obje ctives. For their fulfilment it will be necessary to employ whatever skills are available in the country, wherever they are.

Why Octrol Should Be Abolished-l| By G. S. Badhe