Photos from the January 2013 issue of Grahaka Patrike

(B.V.Shenoy)
Parked vehicles belonging to patients, doctors and visitors of a private hospital in Yadavagiri are hindering the movement of pedestrians and vehicles.

(B.V.Shenoy)
A service apartment has come up very near the hospital. The ground floor of this 1+4 building should have been reserved for vehicle parking, but a restaurant is operating there.

(B.V.Shenoy)
The footpaths of Mysore are being dismantled to widen the roads. But the debris remain for months, causing nuisance to pedestrians and vehicles.

 A screenshot of the website railradar.trainenquiry.com which shows all the trains (as arrows) operating between Mysore and Bangalore.

 (Dwarkanath Narayan)
MCC has constructed a 25-foot wide footpath on 1st Main, V.V. Puram at enormous expense when a 5-foot wide footpath would have sufficed.

(B.V.Shenoy)
Forbes Transformer Station in N.R. Mohalla is a historical building. Due to lack of maintenance, its plastering is falling off and trees several feet high have grown up on its walls and roof.

(B.V.Shenoy)
The debris from road repairs in Mysore remain for months, causing nuisance to pedestrians and vehicles.

Basic problems with voters ID cards

When my wife and I saw the notice  issued by the Chief Election Officer (Commissioner, Mysore City Corporation) that voters need to verify that their names are included in the voters' list before 31-12-12, we went to the Election Office at MCC in November but found that our names could not be located on any of the printed voters' lists. Hence we asked that our names may be searched using the our voter's ID card numbers. My number showed a female named Shivamma aged 40, and my wife's card produced no name at all. The official at the MCC Election Office advised us to file Form-6, which we did. We were assured that our names would be restored on the voters' list within a month.

When we checked the website of the Karnataka Election Commission after a month, we still did not find our names in the voters' list and our voter's ID nos. produced the same results as above. We then sent an e-mail to the Election Commission explaining the problem, but the problem remains. Now the District Election Officer has told us that new voters ID cards will be issued and their numbers entered into the voters list.

This episode indicates that the procedure followed by the Election Commission in issuing voter's ID cards has fundamental flaws. This is shocking since the ID Card is so important, being, along with the Aadhaar card, the main proof that the holder is a citizen of India.

There should be no way that two people are issued the same ID number. Again, there should be no way that a number which has been issued is not traceable by the authorities. In addition, there are innumerable complaints that much of the data on the cards is wrong and if correction applications are given, the item in question may get corrected, but a new error appears in some other item.

So it is imperative that the Election Commission should immediately streamline the procedure of issuing ID cards to make it error-free. It should also redesign the card and make it look more like a national card. Now, the card looks quite amateurish with the format changing from card to card. The quality of printing and the photo are are not upto the mark. The assembly constituency should have been omitted, since any change in the address would necessitate the issuing of a new card. There must also be a provision to change the photo after, say 20 years as is the practice in many countries which issue national ID cards.

Maj.Gen.(Rtd.) S.G. Vombatkere, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

Traffic jams and Master Plan - 2031

It is obvious that the traffic problem in Mysore is getting worse. The decline has been very rapid the last few years, epecially in the centre of the city. Junctions such as the Medical College Circle have now become very difficult to negotiate.

During the rush hours (around 10 in the morning and around 7 in the evening), there is a near gridlock and the traffic almost comes to a stop.

If the Master Plan 2031 approved by the government recently comes into effect, the traffic problem in the centre of the city will get worse many fold. The Plan permits apartments and service apartments (which are essentially hotels) in the central business district. "With a view to encourage redevelopment of the old areas", the Plan also permits additional floor area ratio in the centre of the city which means more floors will be permitted. A huge mall at Makkaji Chowka has already come up. Needless to say, these developments will put a severe pressure on road traffic (and other infrastructural facilities such as solid waste management, electricity, water, fire services etc. also).

Since the Plan also classifies the centre of the city a Heritage Zone, no flyovers will be permitted. There is no space available to widen the roads. So Master Plan 2031 will increase the vehicle density and there will be no way to alleviate the problem. With the existing road network already cracking under traffic pressure, it is hard to imagine how anyone can get into or out of the city centre in the years to come.

A plan is supposed to solve existing problems and avoid foreseeable problems. Master Plan 2031 fails on both counts.

R.Chandra Prakash, Mysore Grahakara Parishat 

Supreme Court order affects Consumer Courts too

The Supreme Court has recently (13-9-12) passed a significant order. Even though the order deals with Information Commissions, the logic behind it affects several other commissions, tribunals and also consumer courts.

In the case before the Supreme Court, the petitioner had asked the Court to strike down several provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005 as unconstitutional. The Court said that, following the consistent view taken by it in various earlier judgments, it will not declare the law unconstitutional, but "read down" the provisions of the Act to make them effective and workable. Then it proceeded to give very detailed instructions on how members of the State Information Commission and the Central Information Commission should be selected and how the Commissions should hold their sittings. Many of these instructions are different from the existing provisions of the RTI Act. Some of the changes insisted by the Supreme Court are as follows. The Information Commissions should sit in two-man benches of which one should be a judicial member. The judicial member should be a person possessing a degree in law, having a judicially trained mind and experience in performing judicial functions. A law officer or a lawyer may also be eligible provided he has practiced law at least for twenty years. Such lawyer should also have experience in social work. All judicial members must be appointed only in consultation with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (for the Central Commission) or the Chief Justice of the High Court (for State Commissions). The Court also said that a person who is or has been a Judge of the High Court should be preferred for appointment as an Information Commissioner and that the Chief Information Commissioner at the Centre or State level shall only be a person who is or has been a Chief Justice of the High Court or a Judge of the Supreme Court of India.

The judgment raises several important questions. They can be broadly classified into two categories, the constitutionality and practicality of the judgment and the effect of the judgment on various existing tribunals and commissions including consumer courts. 

Constitutionality and practicality of the judgment
The Supreme Court did not declare the existing RTI law unconstitutional but "read down" the provisions of the Act "to make them effective and workable". In law, "reading down" means limiting the meaning to make it valid. By instructing the government to change the wordings of the law, the Court may be doing more than "reading down" and stepping into the area of lawmaking which is reserved by the Constitution for the legislature. If the legislature stands its ground and does not modify the law, there will be a constitutional impasse. More than 4 months have elapsed since the Supreme Court order and the government has shown no hurry to comply with it. If the government does not act soon, it will be interesting to see if the Supreme Court will strike down the RTI Act as unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court order may also be hard to put into practice. It may not be easy to find qualified, competent and willing judicial members to fill all the Information Commissions, especially since the judgment will also affect other commissions and tribunals (see below) and create a huge demand for qualified, competent and willing judicial members.

Even if qualified judicial members can be found for all these bodies, there will be apprehension that a large influx of judicial members will make the procedures in these bodies much more formal and lead to delays in passing judgments. Such a situation exists in many consumer courts where the law mandates that cases be decided within 3 months, but because of increasing formality, they have become just like civil courts. Since the Supreme Court has mandated that a judicial and a non-judicial member must be present in every bench, disagreement between these two members can further delay justice.

However, there might be one positive effect of the Supreme Court order. There is a perception that the present Information Commissions, composed almost entirely of retired bureaucrats, are lenient towards violators of the RTI Act, who are also bureaucrats. With a large-scale influx of judicial members from the outside, this perception may change.

The Supreme Court order will also double the size of all Information Commissions with the added expenditure on salaries and infrastructure. Many governments have not provided adequate finances to existing Commissions and it is to be seen if they will show enthusiasm for the additional expenditure. 

Effect of the judgment on various existing tribunals and commissions including consumer courts The logic of the Supreme Court order, namely, bodies which perform quasi-judicial functions must sit in benches in which judicial members are not outnumbered by non-judicial members can be extended to almost all tribunals and commissions which exist now. So dozens  of existing laws will have to be rewritten and hundreds of judicial members with similar qualifications as the Information Commissioners appointed. Some bodies which may be affected are the Competition Commission, various tribunals, central and various state Vigilance Commissions, central and various state Election Commissions and various state Electricity Regulatory Commissions.

As far as consumer courts are concerned, the Consumer Protection Act mandates that the president of the court must be a judge (district judge for district forum, High Court judge for state commission and Supreme Court judge for the national commission). But there are no requirements on the judicial qualifications of the other members of the consumer court. Applying the logic of the recent Supreme Court decision, judicial members will have to be inducted in all consumer courts to equal the number of non-judicial members and in any bench of the consumer court, non-judicial members can not outnumber judicial members.

B.V. Shenoy, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

Immediate action from MCC needed

The water distribution system of Mysore is being revamped under JNNURM project. Under the tripartite agreement signed by Mysore City Corporation, Karnataka Water Supply and Drainage Board and the contractor, Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company (JUSCO), new water lines are being laid to every consumer in Mysore.

In J.P.Nagar, where I live, the new pipes are being installed only for a distance of one meter inside one's property and the new water meter being left on the doorstep. There are no written instructions to the public about what to do next. Since the water supply in the old pipeline was turned off, we were forced to run around asking the workers what to do. We were then told that it was our responsibility to get the new meter connected to the new water line as well as the line going into our house.

Needless to say, it is very difficult to get labour for such a small job. Even if labour can be found, the payment demanded is huge. For a work that can not be worth more than Rs. 100-200, workers are demanding ten times as much. Many desperate home owners are paying this huge amount. As the work progresses, the nearly 2 lakh domestic and commercial establishments in Mysore will face the same problem.

But this needless harassment of the public violates several terms of the tripartite agreement. Section 4.4 of Schedule 2 of the contract which defines the obligations of the contractor reads as follows:

4.4. To carry on basic plumbing to replace the customer connections with appropriate economical and efficient piping and plumbing matrials from the ferrule to and up to the point of location of meter on the connection and up to the customer tap wherever necessary as directed by the employer.

The langauge is somewhat convoluted, but it is clear that the contractor has to provide a new line all the way to the customer tap. Asking the customer to get the meter connected to the MCC water line and his own supply line is a violation of the terms of the contract.
The contractor is also seemingly violating Section 4.6 of Schedule 2 which reads:

4.6 To retain good existing water meters or replace or install customer meters on all points of customer supply.

The contractor company is not retaining good existing meters. Instead, it is replacing all old meters.

It is surprising that Mysore City Corporation is not monitoring the proper implementation of the contract despite several complaints from the public.

G.L.Nagaraj Urs, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

Poor state of FTS building

Forbes Transformer Station (FTS) Building in N.R.Mohalla is a historical building, having been built in 1927 during the reign of Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar. But due to a lack of basic maintenance over the last few decades, it is decaying fast. Large chunks of plaster have fallen off and trees, some of them several feet high have grown on its walls and roof (See photo). If corrective action is not taken immediately, sections of the ceiling and the walls will be falling off under the effect of the tree roots.

It is surprising that Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation has overlooked the decay of FTS building for so long. We hope that CESC takes up the restoration of FTS building immediately and protect this historical building for the future.

B.V. Shenoy, Mysore Grahakara Parishat

Do we need another law?

It has been reported in the media that in light of the water shortage in Karnataka, the state government is considering passing a law to ban sinking of bore-wells without permission from the government.

But such a legal provision already exists for cities in the state. Sec. 300 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976 (KMCA) says "The construction or reconstruction of a building shall not begin unless and until the Commissioner has granted permission for the execution of the work" while Sec.312 of KMCA says "The provisions of Secs. ..., 300, ... shall, so far as may be, apply to wells."  Read together, it is clear that these two sections prohibit the digging of a well or bore-well without the permission of the Corporation Commissioner.

But these provisions of KMCA have never been enforced in Karnataka and bore-wells have been and still are being dug indiscriminately without obtaining permission from the City Commissioner. This has led to severe depletion of ground water which is a common public resource and not the property of any private party. It has also led to large scale contamination of ground water, making it non-potable. It has been estimated that 70% of all urban borewells may be contaminated. MGP has brought this serious issue to the notice of the state government, Mysore City Corporation commissioner and the Mysore District Commissioner, but to no avail.

If there is no political will to strictly implement existing laws, what is the use of making another law?

V. Mahesha, Mysore Grahakara Parishat