Clean-up marshals don’t belong in a civilised city

The digitally printed receipt

The dreaded clean-up marshals, perennially accused of extortion and thuggery, even by corporators, are back on the streets of Mumbai.

According to newspaper reports, the first day on which they were back after a hiatus of a few years saw these thugs penalise 15 citizens in A Ward, which includes areas like Fort and Kala Ghoda. The so-called ‘collection' was just around Rs 3,000 on day 1.

If that seems like a small amount to you, imagine this is just day 1 in one ward. Now, picture this. Each of the 24 wards in the city will soon have around 30-odd clean-up marshals, who will be ‘authorised' to collect fines from citizens who are caught spitting, defecating or littering in public places. The fine amount per offence ranges anywhere between Rs 200 to Rs 1,000.

The extortionist thugs have also been empowered with fleecing unsuspecting citizens via digital payments.

Now, one argument for the need for clean-up marshals is cleanliness and civic sense. This is bunkum. It has been proven worldwide that awareness creation and education solve civic sense issues faster than punitive action.

This leaves possibly the only other reason, unacknowledged in public by officialdom, but an open secret for anyone who is curious: The civic body has run out of revenue streams, and it sees this ‘civic drive' as one way of raising money.

But even this logic does not hold up to basic scrutiny. For instance, in their earlier avatar, the marshals raised Rs 17 crore in 2017 and 2018. Half of this is kept by the contractors, and half goes into the civic coffers.

Now, does the country's richest civic body, whose annual budget has inched closer to the Rs 60,000 really need to send goons roaming the streets to raise a paltry Rs 8 crore?

Instead of extorting money out of its citizens, the civic body should install more dustbins and build more toilets. That will have some positive results.