Shameful that BMC needed court rap to do its job

In what has become a talking pointWhatsApp chat point for the city the BMC removed 27 commercial structures from a plot reserved for a bus station in Mumbai a day after the Supreme Court ordered a freeze on the salary of the civic chief over noncompliance with its directionsThe Supreme Court withdrew its showcause notice against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC Commissioner and lifted restrictions on the payment of monthly salaries to the civic chief and personal staff after the civic administration informed the court that it had taken steps to comply with its earlier directionsThis decision has sparked so much interest and debate in Mumbai given that encroachment is a hotbutton topic in spacecrunched MumbaiThe BMC cleared the encroachment on the piece of land located on Swami Vivekanand Road in Borivli East Yet the very fact that action was taken a day after and court intervention has shown just how ingrained this problem remains in MumbaiThis is not about this particular case but the fact that encroachments are allowed to sprout take root in the first place and then cleared only when some kind of action is demanded Here it is court action that has brought this about imagine an ordinary person with no influence trying to get an encroachment of any kind removed from public space and which is obstructing access in some way He has a negligible chanceThis is te kind of ingrained rot which to be fair to the current commissioner we have been witnessing for years We need an entire system rehaul and cleaning up This is difficult but one hopes the watershed moment will trigger this