Lessons from the Past 120: Creeping Acquisitions aka Footpath Encroachments!
Many decades ago, in the corporate world, it was Swraj Paul who first showed the way to quietly buy shares in the open market; and, when he had acquired a fair number, he moved to take over the company and have management control. He did this in the case of Escorts and DCM and there was a furore. A non-resident Indian (NRI) was disturbing the stability of Indian companies that had been long established. Moreover, he was accused of disturbing the peace and quiet of Indian industry as a whole.
 
Many years later, the system of ‘creeping acquisitions’ became quite common in India and there were no protests. Everyone accepted the phenomenon as quite natural and a norm in the working of corporations. So there was a bid to buy Kesoram, a BK Birla group company, which was thwarted by BK Birla himself buying up shares from the market to shore up his own shareholding in the company. There was also a bid to buy up Voltas by a stockbroker from Delhi which forced Tata’s to increase its shareholding in the company.  
 
What is happening in the corporate world in terms of ‘creeping acquisitions’, was/ is also happening on our pavements in Mumbai in a very similar manner. Our pavements are being acquired in a planned and systematic manner. Unless citizens from the area increase their stake and bring in quick implementation, the pavements will be lost to us in the same way as the companies would have been lost to those who founded them.
 
What is the planned manner in which our pavements are lost? To begin with, there is a clear, well laid out pavement for pedestrian use which was the original intention of the municipal corporation. After some time, a MAFCO stall was set up, for the convenience of the neighbourhood. 
 
MAFCO was a state government enterprise. It deals in packaged foods which are sold at reasonable prices. It needs to have intensive distribution to bring the products within convenient reach of customers. Therefore, no one objects. The municipal corporation gives tacit approval. Citizens feel that being a government company, MAFCO enjoys some government prerogatives. 
 
The MAFCO stall becomes a permanent feature. Pedestrians step off the pavement when they come to the location of the shop, get onto the road and then step back on the pavement again, to resume their journey.
 
Sometime later, another stall is set up close to the MAFCO stall. This is a National Society For Equal Opportunities For the Handicapped (NASEOH) aid telephone booth to provide employment to the disabled and is sponsored by the Lions Club. So another part of the pavement is acquired. 
 
The citizens accept the situation because they think of this as charity. A poor, handicapped person is being provided employment. So why or how can one show violent objection? The phenomenon of ‘creeping acquisition’ has set in!
 
A few months later, a sugarcane juice vendor sets up shop on the same pavement, on the other side of the MAFCO stall. He needs electric power to operate and taps into the nearest power line, unbeknown to the owner of the line—whose bills now will keep shooting up, but he will never know why! 
 
Kakaji also needs space to stock the sugarcane, so he acquires further space on the side of the stall to stock the raw materials and uses the clean and dry open sewer to dump the squeezed dry cane, to wash glasses used by the customers and to wash out the stall when the day’s work is done.
 
There will be those who may want a cigarette after they have had a glass of sugarcane juice. So, some months later, a small cigarette/paan shop comes up against the garden wall of one of the residents. This brings the tally to four outlets on the same short stretch of pavement—MAFCO food shop; the NASEOH telephone booth; the sugarcane juice vendor; and the cigarette/ paan shop. 
 
By now, there is no way by which pedestrians can use the pavement, which was primarily meant for them! 
 
Now, only a small stretch of the pavement remains unoccupied. So the shoe repairer from the foot of the railway bridge close by, having done an informal market survey, decides he would have a bigger business on Central Avenue than at the railway station. He moves his kit to occupy the last piece of pavement, before the crossroad blocks the run of business expansion. He also diversifies into shoe polishing, thus increasing the range of services offered for a larger traffic at this new location! 
 
The ‘creeping acquisition’ of the pavement is now over. If pedestrians now protest, there will be altercations. There is now an interest group – not just one isolated individual or shop. And this group is more united with common goals than the motley crowd of pedestrians who have no unity among them. There may be some conscientious citizens who go and complain at the offices of the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). No use. It only provides these petty officials a handle to extract some gratification from the barefoot entrepreneurs. Most of them do not pay taxes, but they support the government by partially supporting government staff.
 
‘Creeping acquisitions’ are everywhere—whether in large corporations or among barefoot entrepreneurs. Only those who can ‘stitch in time’ can thwart their designs!
 
(Walter Vieira is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India - FIMC. He was a successful corporate executive for 14 years, capping his career as Head of marketing for a Pharma multinational, for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka- and then pioneered marketing consulting in India in 1975. As a consultant, he has worked across four continents. He was the first Asian elected Chairman of ICMCI, the world apex body of consultants in 45 countries, in 1997. He is the author of 16 books, a business columnist, international conference speaker and has been visiting professor in Marketing in the US, Europe, and Asia for over 40 years. He was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for Consulting in 2005, and for Marketing in 2009. He now spends much of his time in NGO work - Consumer Education and Research Centre, IDOBRO, and some others.)
 
Comments
josefina.paschal
2 weeks ago
Absolutely TRUE, we as citizens must unite as a single unit and raise our voice.
josefina.paschal
2 weeks ago
Absolutely TRUE, we as citizens must unite as a single unit and raise our voice.
rohansoares
2 weeks ago
Absolutely hilarious... Unfortunately not funny.
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