Mayor-in-Council: BMC panels to stay

APRIL 17: In a significant climbdown over the controversial Mayor-in-Council Bill, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government is likely to retain the eight statutory committees in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC.

A decision on the retention of the civic panels is likely to be taken on Tuesday. The legislative council passed the Mayor-in-Council Bill on Thursday in its original form after the Chief Minister promised to incorporate the amendments suggested by the opposition. The government had accepted ten of the 17 suggestions necessitating almost 45 amendments. The modified version of the Bill will be tabled in the legislature next week.Congress leader in the civic corporation Kishan Jadhav said his party along with the opposition parties in the BMC plan to launch protest action soon. Jadhav expressed opposition to the new mayoral system adding that all the decisions of the corporation will now be taken by just a group of corporators. Some of the corporators who are likely to make it tothe council are not even capable of taking any such decisions, he felt.

He alleged that the council once set up would follow the diktats of their party leaders and would be a means of running the corporation by the state government. When it was pointed out that the most important public accounts committee would stay with the Congress, he said, 8220;The committee is an eyewash. We will not be able to stop the council from taking decisions which are not in public interest.8221;