Kuni Takahashi for The New York TimesPrithviraj Chavan, chief minister of Maharashtra.Prithviraj Chavan became chief minister of Maharashtra, India's second most populous state and the home of its financial capital Mumbai, two years ago amid a real estate scandal that forced out his predecessor. An engineer by training, he has attempted to root out corruption in Mumbai's real estate business and tackle other difficult problems in housing and transportation, as I reported in a recent article.
His efforts have won him t he respect and admiration of Mumbai's corporate and civic elite. But the real estate industry and many political leaders, including some of his allies, have criticized Mr. Chavan, who was formerly a national minister overseeing science policy, for taking too long to change policies and approve projects.
The following is a condensed and edited transcript of an hour-long interview conducted at his home office on a recent Saturday evening.
You were working on important national and foreign policies for the government in Delhi, including the nuclear deal. Why did you want to return to Mumbai and Maharashtra to take this job?
In our party it's not normally what you want to do. It's what the party wants you to do. The requirement of the party was finding the right man for the right post. And there was a crisis in Maharashtra with the sudden resignation of the chief minister . They had to find a person to hold the fort together. My mandate was to just restore the confidence of the political system, of the bureaucracy, of overall business and industrial sectors.
Lots of people in Mumbai believe the city has been adrift in the last 10 or 15 years. Lots of transportation and housing projects have been delayed. Do you feel like the city has lost time and missed an opportunity?
I wouldn't call it a missed opportunity, but time is lost, absolutely. For example, a project like the sea link should not have taken 10 years. The way we should have rebuilt the city we have not been able to. One of the reasons is we took very wrong decisions about the redevelopment of slums way back in the '90s. We were very populist. We promised free housing to slum dwellers and I think that was like an invitation for more people to come in and grab land. I think those politicians were blatantly wrong.
< p>The transportation links that have gotten delayed, I have fast-tracked. The last two years, the trans-harbor link is moving forward, the contracts are about to be awarded. So that will go ahead. The Navi Mumbai airport has been cleared.Mumbai's civic and corporate leaders say the state and city's political class is so fractured that it is very difficult to get anything done in the city. Do you agree?
People have to understand that the country is paying a huge price for a fractured polity, whether it's at the national level or the state level. We have seen that the Prime Minister Singh was accused of paralysis of policy making, all those accusations by the international press of not acting very fast. It's an unfair comment because we have a fractured polity, and to say that you dare your partners if they don't fall in line even at the cost of losing the government, I think, is foolhardy talk. In politics, we can only do what is possible.
What are your priorities for the city of Mumbai? What do you want to get done before you leave office?
My priorities are three: looking at transportation infrastructure, housing and clean drinking water for a long time to come. I have plans for all of them. We are planning major transportation infrastructure, including the trans-harbor link and the multimodal corridor through the Mumbai metropolitan region; the coastal road around the island city of Mumbai; the metro; the monorail; and the eastern expressway highway and the urban tunnels. A whole lot of urban infrastructure is being planned.
On housing, I am planning new policies, whether it's a redevelopment of [Maharashtra Housing Development Authority] buildings, the government public housing program, or whether it's new initiative in slum redevelopment schemes, or whether it's townships in the Mumbai metropolitan re gion to decongest the city and integrated townships that allow for a place for economic activity and a place for residence together. Â Â Rather than depending on long commutes where housing is in one corner and workplace in the other corner, we will move towards integrated townships by telling people you will be given incentives only if you build integrated townships.
Your critics argue that your administration has been very slow to change policies and approve projects. What happened?
There are two or three things to the fact that things slowed down. One of the things was that so many officers were jailed. Two of the top officers had to be in jail for a couple of years. Four or five officers are facing public inquiry. So, people are cautious. They can't take decisions at the same speed as they took earlier. Second, I was waiting for certain rules to be changed. With old rules people got disproportionate bene fit out of land and all the money went to private pockets. All of those rules had to be changed. The rule change process is a long and tedious process. People who had dubious reputations and were facing court challenges, their cases and their approvals had to be looked at very cautiously. And initially of course it took me time to understand this whole business.
But while I accept that certain procedures, clearances got slowed down a little because we had to change the rules, particularly for public housing policy we changed the rules; the new building rules also caused some delays. But I think things are happening at a very, very fast pace now.
Has it been harder for you to act quickly because you do not have a big political base in the state like some of your predecessors such as Sharad Pawar and Ashok Chavan?
I don't think so. The political base doesn't have anything to do with getting things done. They are two different, completely isolated things. The fact that they had worked in the state longer gave them the advantage of understanding the intricate politics of the state better, and also they knew how the state had worked because they had grown in the system ever since they began their careers in the state and continued to work in the state. I am an outsider to the system, that's a fact. To that extent it took time for me to understand things. But political base has nothing to do with what you do.
You are an engineer and scientist by training. Why did you get into politics?
The reason I came into politics is both my parents were in politics and Rajiv Gandhi picked me. He knew that I belonged to a political family and I had an international background, foreign training, and am a scientist and engineer. He suddenly asked me to contest Lok Sabha elections in 1991, and I had seen politics at a very clos e level because both my parents were in Parliament. I realized what being one of the 542 members meant or what representing 10 lakh people meant. It was the greatest honor that any Indian citizen can think of. So when the offer came I jumped at it.
How do you unwind after work?
I used to play quite a lot, I used to play all the games: tennis, I played golf in the U.S. but not here. I used to play badminton recently. I used to play cricket in my college days, not any more now. But now I am not getting time. It's too hectic in a 15-hour-a-day job. So I am missing my games. I am really fond of reading and traveling. I do travel a lot. I miss my family time.
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