THE INDIAN HUME PIPE CO. LTD. Regd. Office: Construction House Ballard Estate Bombay-1. A WALCHAND GROUP OF INDUSTRY Lucknow Factory: Industrial Area, Mill Road, Alsh Bagh, Lucknow. Telephone: 22542 ལལ What Is Wrong With Civic Bodies We publish in this issue two editorials from the Statesman, Calcutta criticising the working of Calcutta Corporasion. The Corporation of Calcutta is what its constitution has made it. Since the last General Election to the Corporation, it now represents the entire adult population of Calcutta. Before that it represented only a part of the adult citizens with certain qualifications. The Statesman was equally and quite rightly critical of the Corporation elected without adult franchise. Election on the basis of adult franchise has neither made the working of the Corporation better or worse. The Corporation does not merely consist of the elected councillors. The executive wing of the Corporation consists of permanent services, the members of the top of which are provided by the State Government. It cannot be said that the executive wing is less to blame for the ugly state of affairs in Calcutta, though sympathy might be expressed at times at the predicament in which the public service minded staff of the Corporation find themselves. The balance of power between the elected wing and the permanent services makes for diffusion of responsibility in such a manner that neither can have the initiative wholly and be held responsible for all that is wrong with the civic body. In neither wing there is to be found the necessary expertise and dedication and a striving to improve the lot of the cities under their case. The problem of city administration in Calcutta does not represent any special problems that are peculiar to that city. In all other metropolitan towns of the country the same story and the same pattern are being repeated. The quality of the elected councillors and of the services leaves much to be desired. They are both made of local material and the import of substitutes would neither be possible nor permissible. People of the city have to be given representation on the City Government. The elected councillors have to have permanent services for executing the policies and programmes chalked out by them. Until there is improvement in the quality of both, there would not be much improvement in the standard of civic administration in Indian cities. By and large the civic administrations continue to conform the pattern evolved under altogether different conditions than what prevail today. This is a matter which needs being looked squarely in the face and also in some detail. The existing pattern of city governments in India has been taken for granted, and barring some tinkering here and there nothing has been done in the direction of even ascertaining whether they are fit to discharge their responsibilities, and if not, what should be done to fit them for doing so. What Others Say Calcutta Corporation A Useless Body : The Statesman on March 14 in an editorial entitled "Calcutta Corporation" wrote: One of the most obvious and urgent tasks facing the new Ministry in West Bengal is to decide what should be done about Calcutta Corporation. That something must be done hardly needs demonstrating. The Governor's address to the Legislature, at the opening of the current session, rightly declared that priority would be given to development schemes for the Calcutta Metropolitan District. In implementing such schemes. If not in preparing them, the Corporation will patently have to play a key part, either directly or through its represent atives on such bodies as the Metropolitan Water and Sanitation Authority. How totally unfitted it is, as at present constituted, to do so is not merely a matter of common notoriety, but has lately been illustrated in horrifying detail. A little before the General Electlon, the State Government apparently wrote to the Corporation wanting answers to a long list of pertinent questions. These ranged from the number of conservancy vehicles in working order (only 226 out of 323 even allegedly were, and only 34 of these had fitnesscertificates) to the number of demolition cases instituted and completed. It noted that plans for mechanizing conservancy, prepared by an expert of the Ford Foundation for three years, with no approach to a decision, let alone action. It wanted immediate information on the progress, if any, in obtaining equipment for mechanically desilting the Palta settling tanks. All these inquiries relate to well-known scandals, concerning the adequacy and safety of such basic things as the city's water supply and drains; for which citizens have much longer unsuccessfully demanded remedy: Yet the most cynical of citizens may have been flabbergasted by a further inquiry. Had the Corporation's accounts, it was asked, been completed and placed before the Accounts Committee even for the years 1957-61? If not, when would they be? The answer appears to have been that these accounts were now ready but had not been so placed. The inescapable conclusion is that the Corporation's budget has at least for almost a decade been largely based on fiction; that it is now in queer street, as was made fully evident in the last budget, seems to disclose not merely incompetence but what looks remarkably like criminal neglect of duty. six If this were all, it would be bad enough. Unfortunately it is not. At the last election under adult suffrage, Power in the Corporation was almost equally balanced. (The Opposition, indeed, claimed a slight edge.) But Congress was able to entrench itself in the elections for Aldermen, because Opposition Councillors were under detention Had Congress been moderate in triumph, even that might conceivably, though not perhaps probably, have been regarded as the luck of the game. No such thing, An arrogant ruling party proceeded to hog all the seats in every committee which it could, defiantly flouting every convention of even token accommodation to other interests. Where it could not because the Calcutta Municipal Act repuired proportional representation, it blatantly left two major committees, for Finance and for General Purposes, unconstituted-so that, among other things, a large part of recent expenditure by the Corporation may well be unauthorized and hence illegal. In this connexion it is perhaps interesting to note that the chairman of the Congress Municipal Association, though not a member of the Corporation, is Mr. Atulya Ghosh; his statesmanship in lending countenance to such transactions does not seem conspicuous. The Opposition has now been demanding that the aldermanic elections be cancelled; the Mayor was reported as declining to recommend to the Congress Aldermen that they resign, but as stating that the Government could, if it wished, issue an Ordinance. This seems the very least that should occur. But the Corporation has now reached such a pitch not merely of sustained incompetence but of sustained laziness that the case for an What Is Wrong With Civic Bodies. We publish in this issue two editorials from the Statesman, Calcutta criticising the working of Calcutta Corporasion. The Corporation of Calcutta is what its constitution has made it. Since the last General Election to the Corporation, it now represents the entire adult population of Calcutta. Before that it represented only a part of the adult citizens with certain qualifications. The Statesman was equally and quite rightly critical of the Corporation elected without adult franchise. Election on the basis of adult franchise has neither made the working of the Corporation better or worse. The Corporation does not merely consist of the elected councillors. The executive wing of the Corporation consists of permanent services, the members of the top of which are provided by the State Government. It cannot be said that the executive wing is less to blame for the ugly state of affairs in Calcutta, though sympathy might be expressed at times at the predicament in which the public service minded staff of the Corporation find themselves. The balance of power between the elected wing and the permanent services makes for diffusion of responsibility in such a manner that neither can have the initiative wholly and be held responsible for all that is wrong with the civic body. In neither wing there is to be found the necessary expertise and dedication and a striving to improve the lot of the cities under their case. The problem of city administration in Calcutta does not represent any special problems that are peculiar to that city. In all other metropolitan towns of the country the same story and the same pattern are being repeated. The quality of the elected councillors and of the services leaves much to be desired. They are both made of local material, and the import of substitutes would neither be possible nor permissible. People of the city have to be given representation on the City Government. elected councillors have to have permanent services for executing the policies and programmes chalked out by them. Until there is improvement in the quality of both, there would not be much improvement in the standard of civic administration in Indian cities. By and large the civic administrations continue to conform the pattern evolved under altogether different conditions than what prevail today. This is a matter which needs being looked squarely in the face and also in some detail. The existing pattern of city governments in India has been taken for granted, and barring some tinkering here and there nothing has been done in the direction of even ascertaining whether they are fit to discharge their responsibilities, and if not, what should be done to fit them for doing so. What Others Say Calcutta Corporation A Useless Body The Statesman on March 14 in an editorial entitled "Calcutta Corporation" wrote: One of the most obvious and urgent tasks facing the new Ministry in West Bengal is to decide what should be done about Calcutta Corporation. That something must be done hardly needs demonstrating. The Governor's address to the Legislature, at the opening of the current session, rightly declared that priority would be given to development schemes for the Calcutta Metropolitan District. In implementing such schemes. If not in preparing them, the Corporation will patently have to play a key part, either directly or through its represent atives on such bodies as the Metropolitan Water and Sanitation Authority. How totally unfitted it is, as at present constituted, to do so is not merely a matter of common notoriety, but has lately been illustrated in horrifying detail. A little before the General Electlon, the State Government apparently wrote to the Corporation wanting answers to a long list of pertinent questions. These ranged from the number of conservancy vehicles in working order (only 226 out of 323 even allegedly were, and only 34 of these had fitnesscertificates) to the number of demolition cases instituted and completed. It noted that plans for mechanizing conservancy, prepared by an expert of the Ford Foundation for three years, with no approach to a decision, let alone action. It wanted immediate information on the progress, if any, in obtaining equipment for mechanically desilting the Palta settling tanks. All these inquiries relate to well-known scandals, concerning the adequacy and safety of such basic things as the city's water supply and drains; for which citizens have much longer unsuccessfully demanded remedy: Yet the most cynical of citizens may have been flabbergasted by a further inquiry. Had the Corporation's accounts, it was asked, been completed and placed before the Accounts Committee even for the years 1957-61? If not, when would they be? The answer appears to have been that these accounts were now ready but had not been so placed. The inescapable conclusion is that the Corporation's budget has at least for almost a decade been largely based on fiction; that it is now in queer street, as was made fully evident in the last budget, seems to disclose not merely incompetence but what looks remarkably like criminal neglect of duty. If this were all, it would be bad enough. Unfortunately it is not. At the last election under adult suffrage, Power in the Corporation was almost equally balanced. (The Opposition, indeed, claimed a slight edge.) But Congress was able to entrench itself in the elections for Aldermen, because six Opposition Councillors were under detention Had Congress been moderate in triumph, even that might conceivably, though not perhaps probably, have been regarded as the luck of the game. No such thing, An arrogant ruling party proceeded to hog all the seats in every committee which it could, defiantly flouting every convention of even token accommodation to other interests. Where it could not because the Calcutta Municipal Act repuired proportional representation, it blatantly left two major committees, for Finance and for General Purposes, unconstituted-so that, among other things, a large part of recent expenditure by the Corporation may well be unauthorized and hence illegal. In this connexion it is perhaps interesting to note that the chairman of the Congress Municipal Association, though not a member of the Corporation, is Mr. Atulya Ghosh; his statesmanship in lending countenance to such transactions does not seem conspicuous. The Opposition has now been demanding that the aldermanic elections be cancelled; the Mayor was the Mayor was reported as declining to recommend to the Congress Aldermen that they resign, but as stating that the Govern ment could, if it wished, issue an Ordinance. This seems the very least that should occur. But the Corporation has now reached such a pitch not merely of sustained incompetence but of sustained laziness that the case for an |