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Corporators prevent BBC show in BMC hall

Our Correspondent in Bombay

In the hallways of the Bombay Municipal Corporation, the commissioner proposes, but elected representatives dispose. A television crew that arrived to film the BBC quiz programme Mastermind found this out to their chagrin.

Municipal Commissioner K C Srivastav had granted permission to Siddharth Basu's Synergy Communications to film the show in the corporation hall. The show is telecast on BBC World.

Synergy usually films the quiz show in heritage buildings around the country. It has conducted the programme at Delhi's Qutub Minar and in Calcutta's Town Hall.

The BMC's corporation hall is 105 years old and one of the most beautiful structures in Bombay. Synergy had agreed to pay the BMC Rs 15,000 for each episode filmed there.

But the corporators are angry that the BMC let out the hall without seeking their permission, even though they are the ones who debate and quarrel in the hall.

At a meeting on Thurday, Congress corporator Puran Doshi said, "The act of letting out the hall lowers the dignity and respect of past, present and future councillors. The hall is the city's jewel and a sanctum sanctorum of the people and is worthy of far greater respect than being trivialised by using it for a TV show."

Doshi argued that if the administration wanted to give the hall publicity, it could have asked the BBC to make a documentary on it.

Nationalist Congress Party corporator Ravindra Pawar claimed, "No public hall where issues of the public are being debated can be let out in such a fashion. It is like a holy place."

Digambar Kandarkar, leader of the ruling Shiv Sena in the corporation, said, "The commissioner has let out the hall keeping the corporators in the dark, which is not fair."

While Srivastav told the press that leaders of different groups in the corporation had agreed to let out the hall, Kandarkar said, "There was only informal talk in the group leaders' meeting. No formal proposal was brought before us."

While the administration and the corporators quarrelled, 30 members of Synergy's staff waited outside the BMC building. Synergy Communications' executive producer Karun Prabhakaran said, "We had taken formal permission from the commissioner. Whenever we film our shows in heritage structures due care is taken to maintain the sanctity of the place."

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