With civic polls round the corner in Mumbai and 14 other cities in Maharashtra, it is time to ask some tough questions about the quality of governance in urban local bodies. Are the taxes we pay being put to good use? Are infrastructure projects chosen on the basis of what’s best for the public or for the ruling party? What is the benchmark for civic services? What is the accountability of civic officials? And lastly, are our municipal corporations working to a plan?
These are the questions that opposition parties and citizens’ groups –notto forget the media – should be asking. Left to themselves, politicians would prefer to raise emotive issues. For instance, a memorial for Lata Mangeshkar at Shivaji Park, as demanded by the BJP and backed initially by the Congress. Last month, the BJP sought to play the communal card over the naming of a Malvani playground after Tipu Sultan. The Shiv Sena will play its ‘Marathi manoos’ card in Mumbai even though it has done precious little for them. Fighting to retain its Mumbai bastion, the Sena failed to give us pothole-free roads even in an election year and hopes that freebies and window-dressing will suffice. But thank god that the civic polls are not being fought over the ‘hijab’ controversy. So, before any such madness hijacks the debate, let’s look at the real issues, not only in Mumbai but across the state.
Every civic body is finding it difficult to recover property tax, some despite an amnesty scheme where the penalty and interest are waived. Mumbai’s top ten defaulters owe Rs 600 cr to the BMC, one quarter of the outstanding dues of Rs 2,300 cr. This no small sum if you consider that Rs 3,200 cr has been set aside in the civic budget for the 10km-long stretch of the Coastal Road between the Princess Street Flyover and Worli. In any case, the Coastal Road is hardly the mega infrastructure project that Mumbai needs. What Mumbai needs is a ferry service but all it has got is a glimpse of what’s possible in the Navi Mumbai to Mumbai water taxi to be inaugurated this week. Rs 800 cr has been earmarked for the struggling BEST but that was after concerned citizens such as former journalist Vidyadhar Date rallied to save it. The BMC’s mismanagement and the state government’s neglect had almost killed the best bus transport system in the country. One of its bosses foolishly sold BEST bus depots to private builders. Instead of learning from it, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) is repeating the folly.
The NMMC now talks of having an infectious diseases hospital on the lines of Kasturba Hospital in Mumbai when it should reclaim its premier civic hospital, half of which was virtually gifted to Hiranandani Hospital, which, in turn, leased it to Fortis Hospital. The CIDCO boasts of setting up a world class football stadium in Kharghar when Navi Mumbai does not have a single public swimming pool. Talking of Kharghar, its residents frequently complain of foul-smelling water from their taps and last week it was Sector 12. In fact, Navi Mumbai cannot capitalise even on the god-given Pandavkada waterfall, keeping it out of bounds for revellers. However, the crowning idiocy of this planned city is its first metro line, which runs from Belapur to Taloja when half the city commutes to Mumbai every day. Mumbai’s twincity,now nearing 50, does not have transit camps and has left the responsibility of housing those in dilapidated buildings to private builders undertaking their redevelopment. If this is what happens in a planned city, what chances do the boondocks have? Three years after a study by the NEERI and IIT to suggest flood control measures for Vasai-Virar that cost Rs 12cr, the report has not been acted upon. Instead, the natural drains are being filled up and encroached upon.
Last week, the high court ordered CIDCO, MMRDA, the Vasai-Virar municipal corporation to file affidavits by February 21 about allegations in a PIL that the development plan for the area was in limbo for 13 years, during which 883 reserved plots were encroached upon and funds misused.
Urban planners say that civic bodies in India suffer from either under staffing, which leads to a failure in delivering basic urban services, or overstaffing of untrained manpower, shortage of qualified technical staff and managerial supervisors. Lack of supervision has resulted in an unwillingness to innovate in methods for service delivery. And urban local bodies top the corruption charts. The Mithi River Project in Mumbai, which includes dredging, constructing a security wall and service road, is incomplete even after 17 years, during which Rs 1,150cr have been spent on it. In Paithan, an RTI query revealed that civic works for Rs 80,000 were billed at Rs 8 lakh by the surreptitious addition of a zero. Contractors have begun civic works in Navi Mumbai even before the e-tendering process is complete. No wonder the standing committees of these urban local bodies are called ‘understanding committees’.
It is tempting to say that our urban local bodies have gone to the dogs. Stray dogs terrorise citizens but municipalities cannot be bothered. The BMC has spent Rs 9cr in five years on sterilising stray dogs but their population has gone up from 95,000 in 2014 to 2.67 lakh in 2022.
This is not to say that there are no conscientious civic officials or those who are doing a good job. One of them is Dr Ramdas Kokare who introduced the zero-waste scheme in the Vengurla municipal council that has now become a textbook lesson for the CBSE. And it must be said that the BMC under Iqbal Chahal stood up to the challenge of the pandemic.
Much needs to be done though. For instance, a survey by watchdog body Praja revealed that every slum household has to spend Rs 550 on water supplied by tankers, thanks to the lopsided distribution. And that it takes 44 days on an average to solve complaints of ‘garbage lifting’. This newspaper carried a story last week about residents of Sankalp Sahnivas CHS in Goregaon east evicting hawkers and cleaning the road in front of their colony on their own as the BMC ignored their complaints. Ultimately though, if citizens want urban local bodies to perform, they must first go out and vote on real issues.
