Column

W ho says that the state government cannot demonstrate efficiency in executing civic projects? It completed work on demolition of Lalbaug flyover of 370 metres and replacement of Peddar Roadsewerage line of 240 metres well within the deadline.

The government would be justified in believing that it had silenced its raucous critics into puzzled embarrassment. The work on the first had to be completed in 20 days, it was done in five; the second had a 20-day deadline, but the toiling crew packed up in 10. Just as the authorities were ready to assume the pose of batsman completing a century in 20 balls, the whining from citizenry began.

You see, the first work was witnessed in Lalbaug and the second on Peddar Road — spots where the average citizenry will now zip past — only to be ground into the grimy gridlock of its middle-class environs.

Did I say the government heard the buzz of whining? Well, pelf-pleasing netas would not acknowledge that sound is actually another rumble of outrage. Now, it is tiresome to laboriously explain that I have nothing against the good folks of well-maintained precincts of the city. But I must do so to obviate any accusation of churlishness brought about by middle-class victimhood. I know that you gentle people do not wish us ill; you would not want a flyover in your area at the cost of subjecting our areas to a suffocating mess of traffic and rage.

My despairing ire is directed at the government. I put it to the netas and babus that they are classist, and either they are unapologetic about it, or are helpless in resisting pressure from the powerful. When a government is cramped for resources and time, it has to prioritise its responsibilities. But in Mumbai, it seems, lobbying prowess rather than rational assessments create the shortlist of civic missions.

To curb such biases, perhaps it will be more reasonable to say, to save the government from reflexive bullying of the elite, some commentators have proposed that the metro be entrusted to the care of a CEO. Maybe it is an idea well worth considering, because a city as complex and demographically protean as Mumbai needs the brutal calculus of corporate governance.

But no proponent of the CEO plan has defined the role of public officials in the regime of the modern CEO. Perhaps we can borrow the excellent model of accountability from Athens to make the mandarins respect the CEO. Here is an insight from Peter Jones’s brilliant ‘Ancient and Modern’ column in The Spectator: “Most officials in Athens were appointed by lot and for one year only. They did not serve an elected parliament, but the whole citizen body (Athenian males over 18).

Each official had to report regularly to the people and could be arraigned at any time. At the end of his term, the people subjected him to a full audit. Within 30 days of laying down office, he presented his financial accounts (public funds received and expended)”. Wouldn’t we love to do it here? We will first need to get the population down to the ancient Athens’ level...