My Thane of Future

Compared to most of my friends who have been born and brought up in Thane, I am a new comer with just 9 years here. But my love for this great city is no less than theirs.

What with housing construction activity going on at feverish pitch all around, Thane is definitely growing today but I feel this growth is not one which is going to contribute much to the city but will only burden it in future in terms of additional requirements of utilities and infrastructure like power, water, educational institutions, transport, highways, health care etc. Thane will only become more and more a suburb of Mumbai without any identity of its own. It will be a residential base for increasing commercial prosperity of Mumbai.

For a city to really prosper on its own, it must add value to the state and the country. It must thrive economically on the goods and services it provides to the society outside the city. It must think young, be innovative and continuously reinvent itself.

For a long time Thane had a solid manufacturing base in Textiles, Engineering, Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals from small, medium and large scale industries. It generated revenue for the city government, gave employment to thousands and attracted talent from all over the country. Today almost all large industries have either shut shop or shifted their base elsewhere. Many medium and small scale industries are in doldrums. Just a drive through Wagle Industrial Estate will suffice to prove my point. High cost of labor, low level of skills, smaller scale of production and cheaper imports have made manufacturing here unviable for many of these industries.

Thane city needs to create an identity for itself distinct from that of Mumbai by using its strengths to its advantage. Firstly it has real estate which is cheaper than Mumbai. Due to its proximity to Mumbai and a green national park, it can attract top Indian and International talent which looks for cosmopolitan environment with clean living. With all the new residential construction in progress, it can comfortably house a large workforce. It is close to two International Airports of Mumbai, one of which will hopefully come up in the next few years. Most importantly, due to its geographically small area for a large metropolis, it must have environmentally friendly industry so that its citizens have a clean life.

High end Information Technology is one area which fulfils all these requirements and utilizes the advantage of Thane. By high end I mean IT developmental labs and high end software development activity and not call centers which are more suitable for upstate smaller towns. Where to put this industry? With manufacturing in shambles, Wagle Estate comes to my mind as a perfect fit for IT industry. MIDC should buy back all the land it can from present lessees / owners, many of whom will be more than glad to do it. Those industries and residents who want to continue business, should be consolidated in one area of the estate with proper compensation for their disruption. MIDC should consolidate the present smaller plots into large land parcels, construct world class infrastructure like roads, electric power supply, top class public transport and offer the land to large Indian and International software giants for setting up their base here. Each land parcel should be minimum 4-5000 sq Meters to ensure that only the biggies enter the fray. It is high time we abandoned our mindset of small is beautiful and invite those who can provide employment opportunities to maximum number of skilled people.

With so many persons working here, other businesses providing services to those people will also grow dramatically. Restaurants, malls, transport, automobile, travel and similar industries as well as educational institutes will expand, opening up more opportunities for businessmen as well as people working in these industries.

How long will it take? Maybe 5 years with a Chandrashekhar at the helm or more with someone else; but we are talking about Thane for the next 60-70 years; so this is a small time invested for a long term gain.

Internationally, Thane will have its own identity as a knowledge center. Its citizens will have cleaner, better life with less commuting and more facilities created by the revenue rich Municipal Corporation. Maybe the TMC will compete with this newspaper for the title of Thane Vaibhav!

In short if Bangaluru and Hyderabad can do it why can't Thane?