 Indeed, now my pleasure to introduce the next distinguished speaker for this opening session, Dr. Jairaj Fartik, Municipal Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. I'm happy to share with you that Dr. Fartik has been associated with the Urban Age Conference as a member of the Steering Committee, which was constituted in July of this year. His valuable guidance has helped us shape the conference to make it more topical and relevant to the city of Mumbai and India. Dr. Fartik, we thank you for your guidance and time. A few words about Dr. Fartik. He's an official of the prestigious Indian Administrative Service, India's centrally recruited civil service. Before his current responsibilities, Dr. Fartik has served as the Principal Secretary of the Urban Development and the Government of Maharashtra and also as Secretary of School Education in the state. Just the right experience to understand the diversified issues faving Mumbai and Mumbai cuts. Dr. Fartik has a master's in physics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and a postgraduate management degree from Harvard. As Municipal Commissioner, he's been advocating a more open door policy, which creates just the right atmosphere for generation of ideas and solutions for making Mumbai a better city. May I now invite Dr. Fartik to come and share his thoughts with us. Thank you, Mr. Chadda. I'm happy to welcome all of you, Chairman, Director, the International and the Indian guests to the city of Mumbai for this conference. I thank the organizers, namely the LSE and the Dutche Bank, who have made this conference possible. Discussions ranging from future global cities to immediate current problems like housing for the urban poor would take place here. And I'm sure that we have plenty to learn from experience elsewhere. India faces the greatest problem of urbanization. The world has ever known millions of people are shifting from rural to urban setting, and we have to manage this shift within our democratic polity. In a way, the nation is trying to jump from the 19th century to the 21st century in one leap. The rural poor's perception is that their migration to a mega city will solve the problem of their bread and butter. And with this expectation, they migrate even without a legal tenure. The Harris Todaro model explains rural urban migration to the expected wage, rather than the actual wage. So in these expectations, they shift. The rural poor shift with high expectations in very large numbers, and this gives to an increase in urban poverty. Today, in my state of Maharashtra, the proportion of people below poverty line in urban areas is already more than their proportion in the rural areas, because it is not only the spillage of poverty from rural Maharashtra, but the poorer areas all over the country that takes place in the city of Mumbai. The demands of inclusive growth, therefore, require substantial allocations for anti-poverty programs in urban areas through microfinance and basic housing. The democratic system that we have ensures that the decision-making is inclusive. Amongst 227 elected corporators in Mumbai Corporation, we have 21 Muslims, five Christians, and three Sikhs. The linguistic minorities of Urdu, Hindi, Gujarati and South Indian languages are well represented, and these members are as vocal as anybody else. More than half of the population of the city of Mumbai lives in slums. Although all of them have municipal water supply, only a few of them are covered by sewerage. Lack of sewerage and sanitation makes these areas filthy. Such a high number of poor living in slums has meant that the per capita income in Mumbai city, which is 55,000, 55,600 rupees, about 1,400 dollars, is lower than the per capita incomes in Vadodara, Goa or Pune. This is in spite of the fact that the per capita revenue income of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation is among the highest in the country, since it is based on property tax and property values are the highest here, and a local customs duty called DOCTROY. Slums in Mumbai are now undergoing a transformation as what we call redevelopment of slums, which has become possible because the land values, which are about 5,000 rupees per square foot, are now five times more than the construction cost, which is 1,000 rupees per square foot. This has enabled reconstruction of slums in multi-storied tournaments by giving higher FAR to the developer, because usually the slum occupies an FAR of 1.0. It is usually single storied. So by allowing an FAR of two or three, the slum gets reconstructed in a multi-storied tower, and another tower is constructed, which is for sale in open market. So he can cross subsidize the slum construction. Slum dwellers get 225 square feet of house free of cost. With burgeoning population, the main challenges before the city are continuous upgradation of water supply and sewerage. Unlike many other cities in the world, Mumbai also faces very heavy rains of 2,500 millimeters per year. Unlike cities like Singapore, where similar amount of rainfall is distributed throughout the year, in Mumbai it is concentrated over a period of two months. Our stormwater drain systems can take care of about 300 millimeters of rainfall in a day, and the city gets flooded if, because of the erratic monsoon, if the rainfall exceeds this amount. On the fateful day of 26 July 2005, more than 900 millimeters of rainfall occurred in a day in suburbs. This resulted in a loss of number of lives and massive damage to property. I am happy to mention that the Government of India has supported the water supply and sewerage upgradation through Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission and the stormwater drain upgradation through a greater Mumbai stormwater drain project costing rupees 18 billion. Many cities in the world, such as London, Chicago and Singapore, have solved their flood problems effectively in the past, and I am sure that the Urban Age Conference would offer a forum to learn from their experience. The burgeoning number of vehicles in Mumbai on Mumbai roads is another area of anxiety. With rising per capita income of Indians, more and more people are owning personal vehicles. The roads that were designed for a much smaller fleet are getting heavily congested, while underground metro system and underground parking, as well as flyovers and elevated roads are being attempted in Mumbai. I am sure that we can learn a lot from experience of cities such as Bogota, South Polo and others in the developing world as to how they have solved their transportation problem. I again, I close by again welcoming you for the Urban Age India Conference in Mumbai and wish the conference every success. Thank you. Certain kind of politics. Each of the global cities we have visited has both features. This image I like because it suggests