Susir Kumar, Chief Executive of Intelenet Global Services, a back-office outsourcing company in Bombay, says it almost always happens. Whenever a new client from the U.S. or Europe arrives to visit Intelenet's sparkling, modern offices, they are appalled at what they have to go through to get there. Bombay's narrow, potholed roads are jammed to a standstill with choking traffic, and lined on both sides with squalid slums. Kumar spends a lot of time explaining to customers that bad roads don't mean telephone lines don't work, and that open sewers in the slums don't mean call center staff are at risk of disease. Still, he sees the impact of the noise and crowding, and worries. "I wish government officials would travel with us and experience the reaction of foreigners to Bombay's infrastructure," he says.

According to a September, 2003, report by McKinsey & Co. and Bombay First, a citizen's initiative, Bombay residents and businesses generate an estimated $10 billion in taxes, or 20% of India's overall tax revenue. But the government annually reinvests just $220 million of that money in improvements in city infrastructure, according to the study. After years of neglect, combined with helter-skelter growth, Bombay is falling apart.

Why are we allowing our cities to decay. Today it is Mumbai, tomorrow it would be Bangalore.