MUMBAI
Not really, going by the way it handled the auto-taxi strike and the botched best-five system.
Working at cross purposes seems to have become the state government’s second nature. Tuesday proffered just another example. While revenue minister Narayan Rane’s son, Nitesh flexed his muscles to marshal his forces to jam auto-rickshaw and taxi wheels on the pretext of a bandh, home minister RR Patil did precious little other than disgorging verbiage on his resolve to deal with the goons who attacked drivers plying passengers.
The third protagonist in the theatre of the absurd, police commissioner, Sanjeev Dayal ensured that no policemen were on the streets when women and kids were pulled out from auto-rickshaws and taxis.
All this happened on the day a decision was to be taken on fare hike, but the unions didn’t care to wait. The presumptuousness of auto drivers strengthened the nerves of taxi drivers who furthered the drama on Wednesday and screeched four-wheelers to a halt in greater Mumbai limits until the state acceded to their demand for fare hike. The government gaped as the common man was thrown into a vortex of insurmountable conveyance hitches. The question is: who really cares?
No one, apparently. The one who should — the state — has failed us yet again. When law makers compound our problems instead of alleviating them, it’s tragic. Consider Thursday, for instance, when legal experts in the mantralaya succeeded in convincing chief minister, Ashok Chavan that there was still scope for approaching the Supreme Court.
The advice was the fallout of the Bombay High Court decision which struck down the best-five system for SSC students saying that it violated the fundamental right to equality as guaranteed by the Constitution.
When our ministers and experts were actually discussing what step to take, parents of ICSE students filed a caveat in the Supreme Court the same morning. A caveat means the Supreme Court will not be able to pass an order in this case without hearing out the parents. It shows that a few active parents with foresight can act with greater celerity than the state government.
Well, celerity isn’t exactly a virtue of a government which makes new rules only to waver and retract, putting academics in peril and necessitating judicial intervention.
The government — our deputed authority — isn’t bothered to act fast and take apt decisions that concern the life of a commoner. What it’s bothered about is the vote bank. The government knows that it is going to hike fare, yet its minister’s kin holds the whole transport business in Mumbai to ransom. After all, a lakh worth of votes is alluring enough to brush commuter inconvenience under the carpet.
The government is not bothered about how a rule can affect SSC, ICSE or any other board. Its announcement, often shorn of logic, is designed to appease a sizable population. Else, the Bombay High Court wouldn’t have turned down three proposals in three years. The government introduced percentile system in 2008; the next year, it tried with 90:10 seat-sharing ratio for SSC and other equivalent boards, and this year, it brought in best of five which was turned down. Patience of Mumbaikars is wearing thin. The rulers better be aware of that.
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