He senselessly tweeted, about the 29th August Mumbai flooding -
If Superstar Amitabh Bachchan was stranded in his car during the Mumbai floods, for sure he would have been rescued on top priority. Fair enough. But why appease the civic authorities or state government by condoning their horrendous acts of civic mis-governance through Twitter, by trying to match it with Harvey Hurricane. Harvey was a natural catastrophic event of unimaginable proportion,(14-15 trillion gallons or more of rain received in Houston, as against Katrina’s 6.5 trillion gallons).
(Houston floods Courtesy: ProPublica)
Do not even listen to Shiv Sena Chief, Uddhav Thackeray, who insists that the opposition and media are making a needless hue and cry. The fact is, lakhs of Mumbaikars were once again traumatised, faced life threatening situations and underwent untold agony, much of it due to pathetic governance and alleged corruption in terms of civic works. Clearly, no lessons have been learnt from the 29 July 2005 deluge, although it was much worse.
(Mumbai flooding 26 July 2005)
A recent news report in downtoearth.org, run by noted environmentalist Sunita Narain has said, in the context of the 2005 flooding, “While there had been warnings of a breakdown in the life of Mumbai due to schemes like MMRDA’s (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority) Bandra-Kurla Complex, which was built on mangroves, or the Bandra-Worli Sea Link (which narrowed the mouth of the Mithi river) no one paid heed to those warnings. A report by the Concerned Citizens’ Commission observed that ‘the future of Mumbai is being strangulated by the politician-builder nexus, which has vitiated even the redevelopment of slums’. The administration, on the other hand, lacked early warning devices and rudimentary equipment like boats.”
Read the full report
The dangerous decay is invariably covered up with tales of Mumbai’s relentless spirit and anecdotes about the bravery, courage and open-heartedness of citizens in saving lives and providing food and shelter to those who were stranded. Yes, we all need to be Good Samaritans during a crisis, but let us not allow political leaders and administrators to get off the hook.
The time has come for citizens to make them accountable by making use of suo motu disclosure of information by BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) under Section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Citizens must demand information of all the civic works undertaken by the BMC at regular intervals regarding flooding, on its website. Housing societies and various social groups like Rotary Club and Lions Club, RTI activist groups and NGOs should at their club or group level write to the Public Authority, in this case the BMC, demanding suo motu disclosure by it on the civic works in the last one year, with every detail of de-congesting of nallahs, storm water drains, road repairs, study reports of reasons for flooding of Mumbai during heavy rains/cloudburst and road map to minimize it. Details of every tender contract; progress of work by the contractor, inspection of works by BMC on work done by contractors; the amount of money spent for all these works and so on.
Such a letter should also be sent to the State Chief Information Commissioner under Section 18 of the RTI Act, asking to direct the BMC to put up all these details on its website within a week. Armed with that information on the website, citizens can then, if they wish, slam legal compensation notice to the municipal corporation for damages to their homes, vehicles, loss of life and mental agony. Such a type of collective spirit by Mumbaikars would put immense pressure on BMC.
This information comes under Section 4 of the RTI Act which makes it mandatory for every Public Authority to put up information on its website, without waiting for the citizen to file a RTI application. And it mandates that the Public Authority updates the information from time to time.
To clearly comprehend as to what kind of information should be put up on the website, given below are sub-sections of Section 4 of RTI Act, further interpreted by noted RTI experts, Shailesh Gandhi and Pralhad Kachare through their book, ‘RTI Act, Authentic Interpretation of the Statute’.
Section 4. (1) Every public authority shall
(a) maintain all its records duly catalogued and indexed in a manner and form which facilitates the right to information under this Act and ensure that all records that are appropriate to be computerised are, within a reasonable time and subject to availability of resources, computerised and connected through a network all over the country on different systems so that access to such records is facilitated;
Comment: Section 4(1)(a)of the RTI Act mandates good governance by providing for information and record management, indexing all files and cataloguing to make them accessible easily. This has always been a requirement as per the Manual of Office procedures, and is now a statutory requirement. It also mandates the use of Information Technology requiring every public authority to computerize all its records and to upload it so that it can be accessed wherever required. It is a mandate for true e-governance. Failure in maintenance of records is resulting in inefficient working of the government. Inaccessibility of records also encourages corruption as this leads to difficulty in providing service and information to citizens, apart from arbitrary decisions being taken. This section also mandates networking the computers all over the country, to improve the efficiency in government and transparency.
(v) The rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records, held by it or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions;
Comment: Irregularities and malpractices remain unquestioned due to the lack of legal literacy amongst citizens. This clause mandates disclosure at various levels i.e. all Acts, rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records by which the working of Public Authority is carried out. Disclosure of this kind would certainly empower citizens to assess and monitor the working of Public Authorities. It will promote literacy of rules, regulations, procedures and processes among the citizens who are the stakeholders. It could also lead to better compliance with laws and rules by citizens.
(xi) The budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars of all plan proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made;
Comment: This would make the budgeting and expenditures transparent. Social audits could be done by citizens and they would be able to participate and give suggestions on how they would like their money to be spent. Public authorities while disclosing their budgets should undertake the following:
(a)Keeping in view the technical nature of the government budgets, it is essential that Public Authorities prepare simplified versions of their budgets which can be understood easily by general public and these are placed in public domain. Budgets and their periodic monitoring reports may also be presented in a more user-friendly manner through graphs and tables, etc.
(b)Outcome budget prepared by Public Authorities should be prominently displayed and be used as a basis to identify physical targets planned during the budgetary period and the actual achievement vis-à-vis those targets. A monthly programme implementation calendar method of reporting would be a useful model.
(c)Funds released to various Public Authorities, their autonomous organizations/ statutory organizations/ attached offices/Societies/ NGOs attached etc. should be put on the website on a quarterly basis and budgets of such authorities may be made accessible through links from the website of the parent Ministry/Department. If a subsidiary or subordinate office does not have a website, then the budgets and expenditure reports of such subsidiary authority should be uploaded on the website of the principal Public Authority.
Fortunately, there have been significant improvements on the availability of information. Noted RTI activist Anil Galgali has held two sessions at Moneylife Foundation to draw attention to significant improvements in the 1916 helpline (
Check the video and in the disclosures that the BMC has voluntarily made in its updated website (
Check the video . The next logical step would be for activists to get together to access and analyse this information and hold the administrators accountable for lapses. Hopefully, Mumbaikar’s who are heroic in a crisis will also devote some time to work with activists to demand accountability from the civic body and state government on an ongoing basis.
(
Vinita Deshmukh is consulting editor of Moneylife, an RTI activist and convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting, which she won twice in 1998 and 2005, and the Chameli Devi Jain award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book, “To The Last Bullet - The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte”, with Vinita Kamte, and is the author of “The Mighty Fall”.)
The problem of bad roads in growing like Cancer in Mumbai Railways stations/bridges where tiles are broken/granite steps are broken & stampede like situation on certain stations is waiting to happen.Gift these tiles to STATION MASTER S/ WR CR GM's MLA/MLCS/MPs. Mahesh Bhatt
The following should make you happy, Sucheta and Debashis. Lots of people clearly read your mag for my comments on Kolkata on that column about Gujarat were snipped and pasted in FB as something coming from a Bong-hater. I'm no Bong-hater. I'm 99% Bong myself.
What happened to that doctor is so sad, but why should a drain be opened in the first place? This kind of a hack (jugaar or whatever they call it) increases risk, instead of making things work. As you say, legal literacy of civilians is key. Opening that drain without a cop stationed by it was clearly illegal.