MUMBAI, Oct. 17 -- Before the late Ratan Tata breathed his last, he bequeathed the BMC a final gift: an offer to maintain the median of the 10.58-km-long Coastal Road. A gesture that was well received, it also planted the seed of an even greater private offering. It encouraged the BMC to outsource the development of the newly created land along the Coastal Road - expected to cost upwards of Rs.400 crore - to private players. The winning bid went to Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). This step set the tone for a new revenue model being pursued aggressively by the civic administration. Over the last two years - and now with renewed urgency - the BMC has been on a spree to outsource municipal services through public-private partnerships (PPP). The rationale is that the PPP model does not require the corporation to invest public money in the outsourced services, thus saving precious resources. Rather, it even earns from some of these outsourced offerings, such as the parking app. The BMC's privatisation push isn't just about fiscal prudence. The corporation has been making huge capital investments in big-ticket infrastructure projects such as the extension of the Coastal Road till Dahisar; building the Goregaon Mulund Link Road; setting up multiple sewage treatment plants, dams and desalination plants; its road concretisation initiative, etc - amounting to a whopping Rs.40,000 crore. "When the final bills start coming in over the next three years, we'll need to explore ways to strengthen our fiscal resources. Instead of taking on too many projects, we'll focus on a few important ones," municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani had told HT. The BMC began to see red flags early on. For one, it has been dipping into its fixed deposit corpus, which went from Rs.91,690 crore in 2021-22 to Rs.79,498 crore, as per an RTI response to civic activist Godfrey Pimenta. While not yet concerning, it got the civic administration to sit up and take a closer look at its bottomlines. Rather than the BMC bleeding money on running its services, the private player will have to share a portion of its earnings from the enterprise with the BMC - from the swimming pools, parking lots (minimum 25% of the profits), etc. While not strictly a PPP project, the BMC has also roped in contractors to clear abandoned vehicles from the streets. They can earn from selling the spare parts, a revenue project which has given the BMC a modest Rs.1.5-1.8 crore. While the BMC justifies privatisation, critics question the wisdom of handing Mumbai's public assets to private players. Opinions are divided. "As long as the private player provides the services efficiently, and accessibility is ensured, there is no harm in looking to them for fulfilling municipal services," said Milind Mhaske, CEO of the Praja Foundation. "The BMC must ensure safeguards in the system and continue to retain ownership over amenities and they should ensure transparency," Mhaske says. The privatisation of hospitals and medical services has stirred intense debate, even as the BMC charges ahead with its plan to run two of its hospitals, in Govandi and Mankhurd, on a PPP basis. This would leave only a fraction of subsidised beds, thus excluding low-income patients from availing essential healthcare services. Abhay Shukla, national co-convener of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, says, "This approach undermines the very idea of public healthcare, where services should be accessible and affordable to all." Ravi Raja, a former corporator, concurs, "PPP arrangements are suitable for discretionary spends but not for services the BMC is obligated to provide, like healthcare." Shukla argues that privatised hiring dilutes accountability, while opening doors for powerful lobbies to gain control over the city's services, including its healthcare system. Is there an alternative? "Given that the BMC is one of the richest municipal corporations in the country, the administration can well afford to strengthen essential healthcare and other services without shifting the burden onto private parties," says Shukla....