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HC decision to scrap road monitoring panel is cratered by Catch-22 perplexities

In ancient Rome, lawmakers were so perturbed by chariot jams that they persuaded the government, no doubt with sombre oratory littered with sarcastic aphorisms, to ban traffic in downtown areas during daytime. Horse-driven carriages of the 1900s New York flooded the roads with 60,000 gallons of urine. The slush motivated planners, visionaries, and Henry Ford - who belonged to both camps - to flush out corrosive uric acid from the transport system.

But what does the Maharashtra government do in 2007 when potholes, rains, and snarl-ups let off the stench of desperation? It throws up its hands and says, "Let us cover our noses and carry on with our lives."

In many ways, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is large and opaque - just like the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). At least on one occasion, both behemoths have assumed that foreign expertise can purge their systems of chronic ills. The BCCI invited Greg Chappell to align unruly stars into a constellation of disciplined, pliable performers.

The BMC has appointed a World Bank-endorsed US consultant, Sheladia Associates, to smoothen the city's scruffy road network by developing a maintenance and management system. The project will cost Rs2 crore, and if it works, it may mollify citizens who are confused and frustrated by the summary dissolution of the Road Monitoring Committee (RMC).

The committee, which had been appointed by Bombay High Court in October last year, was scrapped by its appointer this week. The court's decision must have afforded considerable relief to the BMC because the RMC had become the redress hub for public interest litigations, filed by citizens shaken by the jolts and bruises of everyday commuting. The RMC's dissolution has facilitated the evaporation of the PILs.

I don't know if Sheladia's work and the Rs2 crore expenditure (the niggardliness of the amount creates some suspicions, given the BMC's usual grand-expense ambitions) will give Mumbaikars a New Way to commute. I just hope it does not end like the Chappell's majestic plan to effect a wholesale systemic shake-up.

Mumbaikars, in fact, had realised that excessive attention to bureaucratic plans and pompous mission statements offered only an illusory promise of a better future. Incidentally, what do you make of MMRDA's faded slogan: "Bear with us for a better tomorrow." It seems only like yesterday when I was as old as my daughter when I navigated tortuous turns to which I was diverted by the MMRDA signboards.

At any rate, Mumbaikars appealed to the RMC because they instinctively recognised that they had a better chance of securing safer roads if they fought from pothole to pothole. The honourable court I am sure has burdens more onerous than dealing with bad roads. That is why the RMC was set up - to select deserving cases for speedy repair.

By eradicating the body meant to ease its load, the court has invited unfiltered appeals. And we know potholes impede delivery of justice.

Email:raghu@dnaindia.net