Education vs. Cars - Grumble Box BMC Edition

If the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) wasn't wading through enough monsoon mayhem already, they've managed to get themselves entangled in educational problems. No, their staff isn't being enrolled for free French classes. This time, they've left more than five lakh (5,00,000 <- thats a huge number) students of BMC schools, who were promised free notebooks, uniforms, raincoats and shoes - high and dry. Rs. 70 crores had been set aside by the BMC for this academic year. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Anyway, the BMC has much bigger problems on hand. (Disastrous) Disaster management, please take the back seat, make way for our grief stricken corporators. The cause of their agony - loss of a near n dear one? No. Loss of property thanks to the generous downpour? No. This time, its the cars.

Dissatisfied with the plain jane Tata Indica (priced at just Rs. 3.75 - 4 lakh), they've demanded the bigger, better and brighter Honda City ZX (that costs only Rs. 7.5 - 8 lakh). The reason - (as stated by Bharatiya Janata Party's corporator Shailja Girkar, in a letter to Bhalchandra Shirsat, BJP group leader) 'the Tata Indica provided by the BMC, is not spacious enough to accommodate workers and BMC officers, while making the rounds (huh? what rounds?)'. He also 'requested' that those with posts higher than ward committee chairman, be given Ambassador cars. Icing on the cake - the BMC has to foot the bill for these cars. The group leaders have been assured that their 'small, reasonable proposal' will be considered.

Conclusion:

Case one:
It will come as no surprise, if the BMC decides to declare that, 'they ran out of funds' one fine day, and the students will have to remain 'bookless' for just one academic year. As expected, many children have already dropped out. My heartfelt thanks to the BMC, for not only helping the monsoon drown half the city, but also for increasing the illiteracy rate and squashing the dreams of lakhs of students, who looked forward to a better educated future.

Case two:
Consider the 'Honda City's given. With big names like 'Shailja Girkar', 'Bhalchandra Shirsat' and 'Rajhans Singh' involved, "NO" doesn't seem to be an option. Now the corporators will have flashy cars to zoom around in, thanks to common man's tax, and if we're lucky enough, we might get run over by one of them in the near future. Look at the bright side - we'll get a close look (very close look) at what good use, our hard earned money is being put to. Do these corporators ever think, how many kids would get free education, if they'd let go of one car?

No prizes for guessing which problem gets solved first.