Mayor-in-Council at BMC: No checks and little balance

The sum of Joshi’s argument for the M-i-C is that the Mayor should not have to kowtow to the Commissioner. And two sets of people for two and a half years each must have direct control over a city whose budget at Rs 5,000 crore is larger than than that of states like Punjab and Assam.

But Chhagan Bhujbal, twice Mayor of Mumbai and now leader of the Opposition in the State Legislative Council who has been instrumental in stalling the bill, points out that if the bill stands as it is, “A Mayor will become even more powerful than the Chief Minister because the powers of the Commissioner to be the executing authority (like the Chief Secretary is to the CM) will be completely taken away. I am myself for more powers to the Mayor, but at what cost?” Joshi appears willing to consider amendments to balance the tilt now entirely in favour of the Mayor.

Then again, does the M-i-C really provide a better system than the one already in existence? No, says formerMunicipal Commissioner S S Tinaikar who, as a citizen of Mumbai, would rather have the local corporator in a position to solve immediate problems in and around his home rather than visit a central office responsible for the entire city as envisaged under the M-i-C. In that scenario who will have the time for a broken pipe or contaminated water in the neighbourhood, questions Tinaikar.

Under the present system, each corporator is as good as a Mayor or Municipal Commissioner in his own ward. But unless the M-i-C sets up boroughs to deal with the problems of the individual wards, civic services could collapse. Tinaikar puts it bluntly : “The present government is taking the entire state for a ride because any basic law limiting democratic powers of elected representatives cannot be passed without liberal debate to establish whether it improves or mars the existing system.”

A system which the city chose for itself after a thorough scrutiny in 1887 by a select committee of Indians — and not Europeans –drawn from the Bombay Legislative Council, among them such eminent personalities as Sir Pherozeshah Mehta and Justice K T Telang. “And it has worked very well for 110 years,” says Sharad Kale, another ex-MC, who takes an even-handed view of the proposed change, saying we must not be against change per se. “A city the size of Mumbai cannot be treated on par with smaller cities like Nagpur or even Calcutta,” he says.

Moreover, in the hands of an ambitious Mayor, there is the real threat of Mumbai ending up a city-state for, as Kale points out, the States Reorganisation Commission of 1956 had even then suggested that Bombay, which was the bone of contention between Gujaratis and Maharashtrians, be hived off into a separate entity. Since then each election has returned more non-Maharashtrians to the BMC. Moreover, Mumbai collects 67 per cent of the sales tax revenues useful to the rest of Maharashtra and 35 per cent of the national tolls including personal taxes. Kale wonders if enough thought has beengiven to these details.

Perhaps not, in view of the Nagpur example. An M-i-C has been quietly established in the winter capital through an ordinance. Since then the city is at a standstill in view of the fact that there are no business rules yet written up to explain to the corporators how exactly the M-i-C operates.

Mumbai may not be able to sustain such lacunae. “Can you imagine what will happen in the event of an epidemic?” queries Bhujbal. “We could all be wiped out because a 12-member council just doesn’t know what to do!” When the protagonists of the M-i-C begin to quote the precedent of Calcutta, there is a basic flaw in the argument. They tend to forget that the Caclutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) is responsible for little more than the disposal of sewage. Not so the BMC which runs just about every service that keeps the city humming and its joints well-oiled : health, education, roads, transport, electricity. By contrast, all these activities in Caclutta are under the charge of the WestBengal government and not the CMC. Even so the WB government took four years to implement the M-i-C. Mumbai similarly needs a gentle break-ins. However, the most damning argument of all is that under the present system the BMC sits in a glass house. All its activities are transparent and accountable: the two greatest attributes of a democracy. The M-i-C will draw a blanket over these activities.

So the question is: Will this make for more efficiency? Will Mumbai remain the city of dreams or, like Calcutta, turn into a joyless nightmare?

Sujata Anandan is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express