Managing Municipalities
The news that funds close to Rs 78 cr meant for civic infrastructure and other crucial works have not been utilised by the State’s 13 municipalities comes as no surprise, given the pathetic performance and functioning of our civic bodies. The blame for this, as Urban Development Minister Francis D’Souza made known Monday, doesn’t rest entirely with the civic bodies which are not allowed to sanction spends on projects above Rs 2 lakh. Municipality delivered projects that cost more than Rs 2 lakh need the technical clearance from the Public Works Department. Given the reputation and scale of corruption in the PWD offices, one can well imagine the reason for the logjam of files mounting in the inward trays of engineers in this arm of public administration. Just imagine too the scale of the backlog of works that have been mired in this bureaucratic impasse for years, and its impact on the State’s civic infrastructure.
The government proposes to rejig the system so the larger municipality projects are routed through the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) for technical clearances, rather than the notorious public works department. The minister is also proposing an enhancement of the financial limits of municipality approved projects to Rs 5 lakh. Both would no doubt help improve the functioning of municipal bodies to some extent, provided these agencies do not turn into another set of impediments for collection of commissions, a harsh reality we as citizens are constantly confronted with in our interface with government.
The civic bodies are also sorely short of staff and a capacity expansion was urgently needed for them to function at some level of efficiency. These revelations by the deputy chief minister of the State beg the question: why has it taken the government this long to figure out this rather obvious shortcoming that puts basic civic amenities in this State in jeopardy? Given the state of the State’s finances currently, there’s no guarantee that Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who would have to sanction the new personnel recruitment, will sign on the dotted line. The chief minister has complained bitterly that the mining shutdown has cost him 25 per cent of his revenue. But it is as much a fact that the government’s borrowings touched a hefty Rs 950 cr last year, and a large chunk of it has been routed to the slew of populist schemes and doles, hardly a reasonable strategy for a government that claims to be in a financial squeeze.
A stream of development works and projects have been in limbo since the BJP assumed power last year, and the chief minister’s tight hold on official funds has been the cause of some bitterness between him and a number of his colleagues.
Part of the problem with our civic bodies and their “functioning deficiency”, as a bureaucrat puts it, is that few of them have full-time chief officers. Take for instance the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP), the biggest and most prestigious civic body in the State which has been assigned a commissioner who also functions as managing director and chief general manager of the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation. City mayor Surendra Furtado has been unsparingly critical of this arrangement which leaves commissioner Sanjit Rodrigues with little time to attend to many of the urgent matters in the civic body.
Municipalities and panchayats are bodies meant to devolve power and administrative functioning to the grassroots levels in urban and rural areas. Unfortunately for citizens, they’ve ended up mimicking both the politics and the greed for graft of the political class at the higher level. While the devolution of power has taken the democratic process right down to the gram sabha level, it has also, ironically, contributed to “democratising” corruption. This is borne out by the perennial instability in our panchayats and municipal councils where every other member now aspires to occupy the lucrative ruling chair.
