THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

AGNI Coordinator K/East JAAG and ex-serviceman, James John probed a road being dug up only to find the BMC never ordered it. In early August, James John was on a tour of Andheri's J B Nagar with social sciences students when he found a road being resurfaced.

''There was no mandatory board stating the name of the contractor, the completion date and so on,'' recalled John, a man with a probing mind given to activism. So he and the students College of Social Work Nirmala Niketan decided to use the Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2002.

On August 5, they made their application and stumbled on a bewildering tale of patronage. The Deputy Engineer (Roads), Western Suburbs, as well as the Assistant Commissioner (KE ward) responded to James' application in 30 days, stating blandly that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had not sanctioned any such road work!

So John who has filed 40 successful RTI applications found the contractor, Nitesh Shah, and asked him why he was digging up a public road.

''He replied that he was doing it under pressure from a Shiv Sena leader since it was pre-election season,'' said John. ''He even claimed to have spent Rs 3 lakh until then.'' Shah wouldn't discuss his political compulsions but confirmed that his company, Bhavsar Contractors, had indeed been working on the road since August, even though ''I have not been awarded a work order by the BMC."

Shah said he had submitted an estimate to the BMC but wouldn't disclose for how much. ''Nobody is monitoring the quality of the work currently,'' he admitted.

Refusing to give his office address, Shah defended the illegal work: ''I will wait till March and if BMC doesn't issue an order, I will leave the road. It is like social service.'' Shah's brazenness is derived from the BMC's nonchalance: a month after replying to James' application, the relevant ward officials haven't halted Shah's illegal work.

Assistant Commissioner, Vasant Prabhu - the Public Information Officer who replied to John's application said he would finish an inquiry. "Such things," he said, "tend to happen in the run-up to the elections."

The tireless John intends to ask the municipal commissioner and the chief engineer of BMC - quoting the RTI application - to find out how the work began, and continues.

"A public road is being prepared without any quality specification, not even a work order?" asks John. "The days when citizens felt powerless should be behind us now."

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