March of folly

It has taken ten months for the architects of the Mayor-in-Council system to realise it is a monumental disaster and should be consigned to the scrap-heap. But even as Mumbai will be relieved to hear good sense has broken out in the corridors of power, it must brace itself for fresh disappointments and trouble.

The government does not appear to have thought through the whole exercise. In any case, it has not revealed whether the old BMC Act will be revived in toto, whether it intends to supercede the BMC during the transition from new to old system or whether it has any other ideas. As the hasty scrapping of the Enron contract and the hasty introduction of the MiC show, it is characteristic of this government to rush into far-reaching decisions first and start thinking about the consequences later.

Finally, there is evidence that financial mismanagement worsened pushing the BMC towards bankruptcy. The budget deficit of Rs 614 crore, the prospect of a Rs 900 crore deficit next year and desperate moves todip into the PF account and reserves rang alarm bells in Mantralaya and sent Chief Minister Rane hotfoot to New Delhi looking for a bailout.

It is politically shrewd for the Shiv Sena and BJP to kill off their creation, the MiC, in order to distance themselves quickly from the raging mess in the BMC. But who is going to clean the Augean stables and how? Both the State and Centre face a resource crunch. One way or another, Mumbai will end up paying for this ten-month march of folly.