A safe decision, as well as a sensible one. Every time a mayor has been elected, it has been his or her wont to launch a `campaign' to elevate Mumbai out of its blighted state. But several grandiose campaigns which could have changed the way Mumbai looks have been left in limbo, dying their death as the mayors finished their terms.

The corridors of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are littered with campaigns which were grandly announced, half-heartedly implemented and then abandoned for new, more ambitious ones. Campaigns on anti-spitting, vermiculture, tree planting, road beautification, anti-gutkha and banning illegal slaughter have all been abandoned at some stage or the other. Patil admittedthat such drives have not been successful so far, otherwise the corporation would not have been fielding so many complaints from citizens.

A classic example is the cleanliness drive, which has been `launched' more than once. Initially, Mayor Vishakha Raut announced the mucn-needed campaign on January 1, 1997. But the campaign could not sustain the initial positive results, and just six months later, when it was almost relegated to the bin, the BMC came up with a bright idea: relaunch the campaign, but with a different name! Thus, under the Zero Garbage drive, Mumbai was to be sewpt clean by August 15. Again, the campaign showed initial results, but petered out as the staff themselves lost interest.

The BMC's nuisance detectors were then put to the task, and they collected lakhs of rupees by way of fines from litterbugs. Yet, the much-needed sense of cleanliness didn't permeate the Mumbaiite's conscience. The drive managed to clean up just a handful of residential colonies.

And when the all-powerfulNandu Satam took over as Mayor, his gameplan to keep the drive going was to organise cultural events like `cleanathons'. Thus, he created an entirely new problem, of walls being defaced by posters exhorting citizens to shake a leg for a marathon race. Vehicles with music parades cruising through the city blaring messages also added its bit to the city's noise pollution levels. Two years later, Mumbai is just as dirty, if not more.

Another fanfare-preceded-but-soon-to-be-forgotten campaign was feebly fought against gutkha. Launched by Dr Ram Ram Barot two years ago when he was chairperson of the health committee, the drive lasted as long as his tenure did. Though Dr Barot received support initially by holding public meetings on the health menace that gutkha is, very few from the BMC turned up at these meetings. His only supporters seemed the Bharatiya Janata Party workers, who showed their interest in the campaign by stunts such as burning gutkha packets for photo-ops. Dr Barot, who has been elected deputyMayor, now hopes to take up the campaign afresh.

The beautification of arterial roads has also sputtered to a halt. Amid high pitched controversy, the BMC spent a whopping Rs 35 lakh to develop a 350 metre-long stretch at Prabhadevi as a model road to lure corporate houses and trusts to take over road beautification. The road has been prettified all right, but corporate houses have refused to rise to the bait.

When the Mayor-in-Council system was introduced in April 1997, first time corporator Rajesh Sharma decided that Mumbai needed more trees, and chalked out a target of planting one lakh trees within a year. One year down the line, just 30,000-odd trees have taken root. The administration claims that citizens did not co-operate with the BMC.

The BMC may, however, may just be forgetting that 60 per cent of Mumbai's population play out their lives in slums. The metropolis is stretched to its maximum for basic civic amenities, and it is not easy to expect them to play an active role in the thecorporation's campaigns. Of course, the least citizens can do is to avoid littering. But that attitude change would require much more than just a loud, shortlived campaign.

Prasanna Khapre-Upadhyay is a correspondent with The Indian Express. She covers civic affairs.