According to The Forbes list of ultra high net worth individuals (UHNI), Mumbai is home to 69 billionaires possessing around $445 billion in assets , the highest in India and the fourth largest concentration in the world after New York, Hong Kong, and Moscow. A city with Asia’s largest slum, pothole riddled roads, crumbling infrastructure, mountains of garbage piled high on roadsides, a defunct storm water drainage system ensuring annual flooding during the monsoons, encroached water bodies , building construction debris strewed in green areas, wires dangling like cobwebs, permanently dug up roads, not a single footpath you can comfortably walk on, a bursting at the seams transportation network and aggressive beggars at every traffic signal. The billionaire numbers make for a flashy statistic.. All it shows is the massive inequity in wealth distribution, the Mumbai billionaires control 50% of the nation's wealth while the rest of the citizens fight for crumbs. It shows government apathy and neglect and a builder-politician quid pro quo nexus. The British left us a great gift but our avarice and apathy turned the city of dreams into a megapolis of nightmares.
