Bureaucracy elsewhere may have the same or different paradigm, but so far as Gujarat is concerned, bureaucrats have a very strong tendency to fish in troubled waters. It invariably succeeds here, mainly because of blank and gutless politicians nodding their head to any new so called solution offered by the former for any puzzling problem. And the "solution" offered inevitably leads to further expansion of their own tribe!

Take the case of urban decay and breakdown of civic "self-governing bodies" in as many as 143 cities and towns inhabited by about 6 million people. Over and above some 75 government corporations - most of them resource guzzling, loss making or meant just to augment the ruling party MLAs' extra power and income - the state government has recently formed one more corporation called "Gujarat City Development Authority"(GCDA) - a fully government owned corporation, allegedly on lines of SIDCO which planned New Mumbai in Maharashtra.

Apparently this idea came from the same department officials who were responsible, in the first instance, for most of this urban decay. It was after loud protest noise made by people everywhere that the need "to do something" was felt in a meeting of yet another white elephant called "The Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board" chaired by the chief minister sometime back.

It is not known whether such a new corporation was formed after discussing various other options. Perhaps they did not consider any idea to rope in private firms in each town for building any collaborative project. Perhaps it is only in the city of Amdavad that a bright municipal commissioner had rallied the support of a couple of private companies to build such a modern facility like C.G.Road.

Nowhere else we find any city project undertaken on the line of Ajmer, where the local body invited offers to convert solid waste into energy on a BOO basis (Build, Operate, Own). Chennai corporation planned to build a modern abattoir using the private sector route. Indore municipality too planned a private sector partnership to build an energy plant from solid waste. Even a new bridge on Amravati river is being built by the Karur municipality in Tamailnadu in collaboration with private companies. Lonavala Nagar Parishad has saught offers from private firms to build modern tourist facilities on BOT basis (Build, Operate and Transfer). Ludhiana municipality has similarly undertaken a plan to build water supply project with a private company's help. There are so many more examples to learn from.

Further, a new and radical way to deal with this urban decay is also to declare "local emergency," dissolve all these pretentious "self-governing" bodies, to hand over them to security forces for a period, build all those projects on a war footing and instill some civic sense among people.

A small town municipality president once told me that he had to shell out as much as 10% from any new grant or loan sanctioned for sewer or road or water projects to those bureaucrats before he got the amount from Gandhinagar!! Over and above, each elected representative demanded his pound of flesh and the president had to oblige just to stick to power!!!

People at Limdi and Palitana and Junagadh and Anand and Jetpur and Bhuj told me that any road or vegetable market or water supply or garden project in their town fetched huge amounts of "pocket expense" to all those elected representatives. Such a practice had become a law unto itself now. Neither the chief minister nor the officials could devise any solution to once and for all abolish such a shameful practice. Self-governance had become a flourishing self-serving business in every town and city's local body, in connivance and collaboration with some district collectors or Gandhinagar bosses.

No surpise, therefore, to see all those 143 local bodies suffering from acute financial crisis. The gap between the actual income of local bodies and the need to provide basic facilities is simply mind-boggling - Rs 446.56 crores against 2,173 crores! More and more towns are churned out from small villages during this fast growing chaos, without any plan or money.

It is simply incomprehensible how the chief minister could encourage the formation of a new corporation? Just look at this one: Gujarat State Finance Corporation(GSFC) spends some Rs 6 crores behind salaries of its staff only, without much productive work on record. One of the major political jobs of any newly elected chief minister is how to distribute these "milching cows" to his cronies around. Now there is one more "cow" at his disposal.

Express your concern to Uncle Bob.

Dear Uncle Bob ..............