The Month Reviewed

Bombay Municipal Strike

India's biggest-ever civic workers' strike and the most massive demonstration to date in the country coincided with the debate on the first ever censure motion in the Lok Sabha against the Nehru Government.

The employees of Bombay Corporation struck work on August 12 under the leadership of the Socialist-controlled Municipal Mazdoor Union, when they found the Congress-dominated Corporation's administration unwilling to negotiate with them on their demands, including a the one for 25 percent rise in the dearness allowance, to neutralise the recent rise in the cost of living.

That the Union had a "case" was clear from the statement which the Corporation's Commissioner, Mr. S. E. Sukthankar made in the Corporation meeting on the day the strike began. He said that the Union had entered into an agreement with the Corporation in July, 1962. This, he claimed, meant clearly that all its demands had been settled up to that time. But Mr. Sukthankar conceded that if there had been a rise in the cost of living since then, it would have a case.

Mr. Sukthankar was once a Labour Commissioner of the Maharashtra Government and was fully aware of the processes of negotiations in case of industrial disputes. But he refused to negotiate with the Union. On the other hand he charged it after to strike had begun with "browbeating, threatening, shouting and holding the city at bay", and with thinking that it could thus "get something out ofthe Corporation". The charge, as is obvious, was ill founded. The Union stood to gain by negotiations, and not by striking. By being forced to call the strike, its "case" has suffered somewhat. Socialist strike leader Mr. Madhu Limaye has characterised the Commissioner's statement that the Union leaders were afraid to discuss their demands with him a lie.

The Chief Minister of Maharashtra and

others have characterised the strike as political. This may be true, for politics and trade unionism often get mixed in this country, and the Socialist Party is not the only Party guilty of so doing. The Government and the Corporation administration also unfortunately dealt with the dispute and strike in a political manner. On April 5 last the Government struck first, by arresting under the Defence of India Rules, Mr. George Fernandes, a Socialist member of the Bombay Corporation's and a leader of the Municipal Mazdoor Union and the Corporation's BEST workers' union and the President of Bombay Taximen's Union, before the worker's demands were properly formulated.

Though the Labour Minister of Maharashtra, after the strike had begun, claimed that the Government had advised the parties in the dispute to go in for conciliation, arbitration or adjudication, but and alleged that none of these legal methods was acceptable to the Union, the strike leaders have challenged this statement. There was, however, nothing to prevent the Government from ordering the conciliation and adjudication. But they preferred to play politics. The Government resorted to DIR to terrorise the workers, the strike was declared illegal and a large number of arrests were made. The Chief Minister, taking a strong line said, after the strike had begun, that the Government would not intervene in the civic dispute or take any steps to bring about a settlement unless the strike was withdrawn. This stand was unprecedented and Mr. M. S. Kannamwar has also, exposed himself to the charge of practising double standards. This was not first such strike, but the fourth in the last six years.

When the Municipal Mazdoor Union had called a strike on July 12 last year, it was called off after three days, on the intervention of the Maharashtra Government. The strike had ended on an agreement being signed by the representatives of the Corporation and the Union in the presence of then Chief

Minister of Mahrashtra, Mr. Y. B. Chavan, which had virtually conceded the bulk of Union's demands.

This year, the strike lasted ten days, because of the intransigence of the Corporation administration and the Government of Maharashtra. Having been forced to call off the strike without any agreement the Union may not be in a strong position to negotiate its demands now, but the demands have not been withdrawn, and they will have to be considered, Union Defence Minister, Mr. Y. B. Chavan, who intervened to get the strike called off, has correctly said that the mere fact that workers went on strike should not be a reason for not considering their demands. As stated above, before the civic workers strike was called off, Bombay City on August 20, witnessed the most massive demonstration of the working class and the other people against the Government. That day Bombay city was completely pralysed. Mills, offices, hotels, restuarnats closed. There was no transport available that day in the city. Such a successful strike might not have taken place but for the Corporation's and State Government's mishandling of the civic workers' strike with the ulterior motive of humiliating an Opposition political party and smashing a trade union movement under its influence.

Integrated Planning

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The latest census figures not only confirm the rapid trend towards urbanisation but they underline the fact that our big and medium-sized cities are growing bigger and bigger, while the smaller towns are losing ground.

At present, according to the introduction to the questionnaire issued by the RuralUrban Relationship Committee, of the Union Health Ministry, the rural areas are practically limited to what is left after the boundaries of sprawling city are extended without any consideration of a balanced land use, resulting in a total dislocation of municipal services and creation of chaotic slum conditions.

An instance of such indiscriminate and thoughtless <xtension of urban boandaries

was provided in 1959 when the Uttar Pradesh Government set up Municipal Corporations in five of their major towns. Overnight the boundaries of the municipal areas in these towns were pushed out so as to include several times bigger rural area whithin the municipal limits than the area that was already being administered by the Municipal authorities. After four years, large parts of these cities continue without roads, drainage, sewerage, water supply, and other similar essential civic amenities. Such thoughtless extension of the municipal boundaries also results in the disruption of the economic life in the rural areas parts of which are thus snatched away.

The need for dispersal of population and industries has also been recognised as one of the tenets of national policy. But it has also to be recognised that in India, as in other developing countries, rapid urban growth and the resulting huge concentration of populations, has been more the result of economic "push" factors from the country side than of the "pull factors" from the city.

According to the first report of the Calcutta Metropolitan Organisation, about 55 percent of Calcutta's population are migrants from the rural hinterland and neighbouring States. Because of the "push" factors, referred to above, they prefer to live and work in abominable conditions in Calcutta, which is a great commercial as well as industrial centre. Calcutta's per capita income is about 70 percent higher than the national average. But one out of every four persons in Calcutta lives in a slum or bustee. On 1,600 acres of land, representing about one.twelth area of the city, about one-fifth of the people are living in bustees, declared as such by the Calcutta Corporation.

Integrated development of rural and urban areas seems to be the only obvious answer if the uniform growth of the various regions of the country is to be ensured. Dispersal of industries in under developed regions has not been sufficiently effective. The trend so far has been to develop rural and urban areas in isolation from each other. By planning for entire rural-cum urban areas in an integrated manner it would be possible to make

resources

the rural- urban units economically viable and mutually beneficial, bringing into account which would not be available otherwise. This is one of the questions to be studied by an expert committee set up by the Government of India in April last under the chairmanship of Mr. Balwantray Mehta, who has since been appointed Chief Minister of Gujarat. One of the terms of reference of the expert committee is "making recommendations regarding the relationship between the urban local bodies and the Panchayati Raj institutions" and on account of the emphasis on this aspect of enquiry the expert committee is aptly called the Rural Urban Relationship Committee.

There is need for considerable re-thinking on the problems of local government in this country, as the lines on which urban local bodies have developed have become almost obsolete, and the growth of rural local bodies, so far, has been in what may be called splendid isolation, and completely forgetting the irresistibe trends towards urbanisation. Rural and urban areas cannot be completely separated from each other. By integrated planning both can fare better.

Noise Nuisance

Super-urbanisation and craze for big buildings cause tension and are bad for mental health. On the fringes of, and in, large towns, enormou blocks of dwellings are springing up. Loudspeakers, children crying and other people's quarrels constantly assail those who live in flats in such buildings. Large housing estates are becoming the order of the day as urbanisation makes rapid headway, even in the developing countries.

In 1800, 98 percent of the world's population was rural. In 1950 only 80 percent. In 1800, 2 percent of the world's population lived in towns of more than 20,000 inhabitants and 2 percent in towns of over 100,000 inhabitants. By 1950, these percentages had risen to 20 percent and 13 percent and the trend continues.

cent of the total world population will live in urban areas by the year 2,000. This will inetably mean more housing estates, big buildings and flats.

Modern life in the growing towns, increasingly restless, noisy and agitated, afflicts the average man with more and more psychosomatic illness, like gastric ulcer, heart disease, cerebral haemorrhage, skin diseases. and allergies. It has also been rightly said community life is a ground creeper, not a climbing plant.

Noise has become one of the major health hazards in the expanding conurbations in developing count aies. In Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi the problem of noise has already According to a National Physical Laboratory survey, Gurdwara Sisganj is the noisiest spot in Delhi because of the indiscriminate use of loudspeakers there..

become acute.

Loudspeakers contribute the maximum to the noise in the urban areas, and several of the civic bodies and State Governments have

resorted to promulgation of byelaws and laws ostensibily to curb this nuisance. The latest to act in this behalf is the Rajasthan Government who in March last got their Noise Control Bill passed into law, which, according to the Home Minister of the State, would apply only to urban areas where noise nuisance has to be curbed. Specific distances, he said, would be prescribed by the district authorities around hospitals, telephone exchanges, educational institutinns, hostels, Government offices and courts, within which the use of loudspeakers during certain hours would be banned.

However, the manner in which Noise Control law and byelaws have so far been enforced in the various urban areas in different parts of the country shows that those responsible for the enforcement of these have lost sight of the object of these measures. The civic bodies have cared more for the fees that licensing the use of loudspeakers brings in, and the police and magisterial authorities in allowing or not allowing the use of loudspeakers have had more often in mind the political or law-and order implications of their orders, and not the effect of noise on the mental health of the people.

The latter is not surprising, as the legislators too have not yet become fully aware of the implications of noise nuisance in relation to the health of the people. When the Rajasthan Noise Control Bill was being debated in the State Assembly in Jaipur, the Opposition members criticised the measure as a Government move to curb political parties and demonstrations in the guise of controlling.

noises.

Beautifying Cities

Cities can be beautified at very little cost by judicious planting of trees. Indian Cities have to make much leeway in this direction, in spite of our having celebrated Van Mahotsava (Festival of Trees) for 14 years. running now.

Most of us tend to take trees for granted. We start to feel strongly about them only when they are felled or mutilated. Our Prime Minister also issues statements when some incident of the latter kind is brought to his notice. But not much positive is being done to plant trees in our cities in a planned manner to improve their looks.

Hardly a street could not be improved, if someone would give thought to planting the right trees in the right places. Wherever new development is replacing old slums, there is a chance for growing trees in areas almost treeless upto now. But such chance has not been properly availed of. Trees are hardly less important in our industrial areas. and housing estates then in town centres and public gardens.

There are very few civic bodies in the country that have gone in for landscape gardening. There is no tradition of respect for trees in our cities, though Hindus worship trees, and the President of Forest Research Institute has composed a prayer in Sanskirt to the goddess of forests. Many trees in towns where tney exist, are stunted in growth or mutilated, and many streets and open spaces that would benefit from trees have none.

It is much easier to appreciate trees that are already fully grown than to envisage, (Continued on page 8)

Dealers

M/s Victory Trading Corporation, 26150, Birhana Road, Kanpur.

The ad hoc committee for Gorakhpur town planning has passed the master plan prepared for the city of Gorakhpur. A copy of the master plan has now been placed in the locla municipal hall for study and objections by the citizens.

The city is situated in the terai belt at the root of the Himalayas and its district boundaries touch the boundary with Nepal. Its average temperature varies from 7.3 degree C to 50.1 degree C and the mean average rainfall of this area is 50.1 inches annually.

The city is situated between a forest bel: and an area of waterways in the form of a hollow basin. It is bounded by rivers Rapti and Rohin on the south-west, Laxipur, Sherpur jungles and Chiluatal on the north and a forest belt on the east and north-east. On the south, there is a big natural lake known as Ramgarh Tal.

The city has recently been growing in a haphazard way. The establishment of headquarters offices, loco, carriage and signal workshops of the North Eastern Railway and the university at Gorakhpur and immigrants from adjoining areas together with high rate of natural growth have resulted in acute shortage of housing and overcrowding in the existing developed area. At the same time, sub-standard development took place on open places of land without any proper planning.

The report says that to control the haphazard, insanitary and sub-standard development, Gorakhpur has been declared as regulated area under the U. P. (Regulation of Building Operation) Act, 1958. It has, therefore, been necessary to prepare a master plan of this city. With the help of this master plan it is expected that the future growth of the town will be on a planned basis.

Areas (in acres) proposed in the master plan for different land uses are as follows:

Residential 4958.69 (in addition to the existing area); light industry 495.86; heavy