Mumbai: Mumbaikars are tired of reading signs promising a better tomorrow.
Almost a year after the city shut down under the onslaught of a cloudburst, not much seems to have moved down the corridors of power.
In fact the very first showers of the season saw the city tied up in knots.
Parts of the city were submerged after the first showers hit Mumbai. Trains ran late and traffic jams virtually brought the city to a standstill.
And this situation arose in spite of months of promises from the civic authorities - holding out the carrot of a rosy future - with smooth roads and fast moving traffic.
N K Sahu, a resident of Sion says, "Yesterday the water was so much it came into my house."
Kishore Nandlal hailing from the same locality echoed the woes. "MMRDA has raised the height of the road, therefore all the water flowed into our houses."
Sion was in fact the first area in Mumbai that had been affected last year as well.
Major arterial roads, like the Western Express Highway, Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road and SV Road have been dug up.
Dredging work on major rivers is only 75 per cent complete and a state of the Art Disaster Management cell failed to work due to a power failure.
Officials have a ready answer as they blame it on the early arrival of monsoons. Mayor Dattaram Dalvi seems to have the perfect alibi. "We didnt expect rains to arrive so soon. We were clearing nallahs as per our June 5 deadline but the rains suddenly came."
Chandrashekhar Prabhu, president of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority says, "Somebody must take responsibility. Government in its panic mode appointed committees and they have still not reached a solution."
The authorities promising a better tomorrow is nothing new. But Mumbaikars are now old hands at the game, and simply refuse to believe in the future, as they reconcile to living in their miserable present.
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