Navi Mumbai, Oct 26 — Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) President, Raj Thackeray, on Monday launched a scathing attack on the state's crumbling urban infrastructure and worsening traffic management, stating that he is eagerly waiting for the day the people of Maharashtra hand over power to him.
Addressing a commercial vehicle transport convention and transporters' rally in Navi Mumbai, Raj Thackeray criticised the lack of civic discipline, poor city planning, and flawed execution of e-challan systems, warning that the state’s traffic crisis will soon spiral out of control.
Raj Thackeray warned that the traffic problems plaguing urban areas have already reached alarming proportions and are bound to get much worse due to a total lack of structured boundaries or civic rules. While clarifying that he is not opposed to the e-challan system, he criticised the arbitrary manner in which fines are levied. He argued that e-challans should strictly be camera-monitored rather than issued manually on the spot by personnel.
Raj Thackeray accused authorities of drafting development plans out of "friendship with builders" rather than consulting experts or implementing proper town planning.
Pointing out that roads should ideally cover around 15 per cent of a region's total area, he noted that areas originally built for 50 people now house 500 without adequate parking infrastructure. He remarked that bridges and roads are often engineered to break down within two years so that repair contracts can be continuously issued.
"Looking at the traffic in this country gives me a glimpse of its present and future. We neither know how to drive vehicles nor how to park them," Thackeray remarked. In a sarcastic critique of modern traffic management, he noted that cities now have automated traffic signals, yet human traffic constables are still deployed right beside them because nobody trusts motorists to obey rules.
Sharing an unheeded suggestion he previously made to the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner, Thackeray proposed colour-coding footpaths (red and black for strict 'no parking' zones, yellow and black for designated parking areas).
However, he lamented that lack of public implementation renders such ideas useless. Thackeray warned that cities lack long-term vision. If suburban railway systems—which carry millions of daily commuters in regions like Navi Mumbai—ever collapse, the sudden influx of private vehicles onto the roads would completely gridlock the city, trapping residents inside their homes.
He criticised the haphazard growth of towers and colonies lacking adequate public spaces like playgrounds, gardens, or sustainable water supplies, questioning whether this chaotic urbanisation can truly be called "discipline."
Concluding his address with a direct political assertion, Thackeray declared that bringing discipline to Maharashtra’s transit and urban sectors does not require "rocket science," but rather political will. "I really look forward to seeing when the people of Maharashtra hand over power to me. Bringing discipline to these kinds of things is not rocket science; it just takes the will to do it," Thackeray said, drawing loud applause from the audience of transporters and party workers.