Mamata Banerjee has articulated certain home truths on the eve of the municipal elections, most particularly in the vast border district of North 24-Parganas. Wednesday’s message is suitably blunt ~ “Those who perform well will be rewarded; we will have to think about others who don’t.”

The state government will appoint observers in each of these municipalities to ensure that the quangos are run smoothly. One must give it to her that the rather unusual state intervention in the running of civic bodies has been necessitated by the overwhelming sloth and indifference; both are likely to impinge on the outcome of the poll on 19 December.

Observers will monitor the projects that have been undertaken and furnish their report to the Principal Secretary of the urban development department. The chairpersons of municipalities have been asked to examine the touted civic amenities, notably drainage, sewerage, roads, hoardings and planting of trees.

The CM has even asked Trinamul’s Dum Dum MP, Saugata Roy to discuss the problem of waterlogging in the peripheral areas of the airport, such as Rajarhat, New Town, Kestopur and Salt Lake. No less alarming was the allegation of the state’s forest minister, Jyotipriya Mullick, that revenue collected at the Petrapole border post of the Customs department is not being deposited in the state exchequer.

She was explicit on the imperative that the revenue must be deposited in the state coffers; the money cannot be at the disposal of any municipality. Accordingly, the Chief Secretary and the Finance Secretary have been instructed to form a committee chiefly to ensure that the state is not deprived of revenue that is earned through border trade. It is pretty obvious that the Chief Minister has dwelt on the pedestrian functioning of the municipalities as well as the revenue factor.

She has signaled her intent, saying that “with this money we will repair the roads”. She has urged the state’s irrigation department to discuss with the Centre a “master plan”, so-called, for Minakha, Swarupnagar and certain other areas of Bashirhat Lok Sabha constituency. These areas were severely damaged by the two cyclones, Amphan and Yaas. The first had occurred in 2020 and the second a few months ago.

The fact that they still cry out for reconstruction is testament to the lethal cocktail of callous negligence exacerbated by the irregular diversion of funds, to which the Chief Minister hinted on Wednesday during an administrative meeting at Madhyamgram, very near the airport runway. Considering the affluence of fishery owners in the areas that dot the total area of the municipalities, the Chief Minister has made it clear that they are in a position to develop the roads in their areas.

It was overall a verbal demarche to the stakeholders in the civic constituencies of the sprawling parliamentary seats in North 24-Parganas, not to forget the rest of West Bengal. In a sense, the quangos form the pivot of local administration, and the Chief Minister’s angst is understandable.