Web of goof-ups snares BMC

MUMBAI, JULY 14: If you wonder why the BMC failed to act quickly at the time of the heavy downpour in the city, consider this: it has, on ...

MUMBAI, JULY 14: If you wonder why the BMC failed to act quickly at the time of the heavy downpour in the city, consider this: it has, on its website, even failed to acknowledge the change in the seat of Mumbai’s civic commissioner. V Ranganathan may be holding the Municipal Commissioner’s post at the civic headquarters at CST, but at mumbaicorporation.com, Nalinakshan continues to hold charge. His picture adorns the home page of the corporation’s website along with that of mayor Hareshwar Patil. Under Nalinakshan’s photo is clearly written, for the enlightenment of page viewers, “Municipal Commissioner K Nalinakshan.”

If an internet user from, say, New York logs on to the site, he will first encounter a very smiling picture of Nalinakshan with an appeal to corporate houses and individuals to join in the beautification of Mumbai. The Deputy Mayor here is still Dr Ram Barot, the Standing Committee Chairperson is Sada Sarvankar, the Improvement Committees Chairperson is Dr A S Rao and the Best Committee is headed by Prabhakar Shinde. All these posts are now held by other corporators who took over in April this year. But for the website, launched on July 20, 1999, nothing seems to have changed.

The private company entrusted with the work of updating and designing the page has apparently not even bothered to visit the site after it was launched. Moreover, the site is is so poor on information that it can be used only for academic purposes, that too for school students. Even here it does not serve its purpose well, as most of the pages are riddled with mistakes. For example: the mayor is not a statutory authority according to the site. The data on budgetary allocations provided is from the 1998-99 budget, dates and information concerning global tenders to be invited for the Mumbai Water Supply Project are wrong, and statistics on recreational facilities provided by BMC is also all wrong in particular cases. For instance, the number of gardens, including strip gardens, has been put at 427, while the actual number is 369, and the number of playgrounds is put at 143, while BMC actually has 233.

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Even civic officials agree the site would serve no purpose to, say, a businessman or a citizen who logs in for vital information as it restricts itself to definitions, statistics, etc. Stating that mumbaicorporation.com and the endeavours by the BMC in this field “lack in vision”, a senior civic official said the whole site needs to be redesigned to make it user-friendly.

At present the site has nothing that would attract visitors. So if a businessman from Calcutta logs in to check the octroi clearance procedures, he would be furnished with the following information: “Octroi is recovered on goods coming by road, through Municipal Co-operative Bank Ltd and departmentally on goods coming by air. Octroi on goods coming by sea and railways is recovered by BPT and railway authorities respectively. In all cases, assessment of octroi is done by BMC staff.” Of what importance would be information of this kind to businessmen or citizens, the official wonders. The official, who has also worked with the state government noted that the BMC and the state government were on the same grounds in this case as both have not yet realised the potential internet holds. “There is a need for vision which is acutely lacking in the corporation,” he said.

The website simply goes to prove this, as each and every page speaks of callousness, apathy and lack of sincerity in the job done. Even omnipresent problems like encroachments are not dealt with. All the site has to say about encroachments is – “The encroachment removal action removes the goods of unauthorised hawkers under Section 314 of the BMC Act and the requisite charges on goods are realised.” There are no phone numbers alongside or any details on how a complaint can be lodged.

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