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The city bites

4 July 2008

Few government organisations are as infamous for inefficiency and loopholes as the Thimphu City Corporation (TCC). On closer viewing, the municipal body is a hapless and misunderstood organisation desperate to shake loose its bane of ill repute.

Whether it is for old building permits, construction, land pooling, checking thram number, land ownership, transfer of properties, clearance or approvals, people generally detest going to the TCC. The list of complaints goes on and on. “My land has been transferred twice to different people without my knowledge and I hold the TCC responsible for these transactions,” said Jetseun (name changed) whose land had been transferred with a forged signature.

Jetseun learned that the person behind the forgery had shown all the relevant documents. The TCC had then gone to verify the land and accepted the forged signature, failing to notice that the signatures on the authorisation letter and the agreement letter did not match.

Requesting anonymity, a Thimphu businessman said that it had taken him a year to get approval for a construction drawing. He said that the TCC was either understaffed or had too much work to handle.

Kinley, a contractor, said that although checking a thram number should not take more than 10 minutes, in his case, it took ‘eons’ for the TCC to check his. Last year, Kinley wanted to inquire on his thram number for a trade license. The officer concerned sat idle at his table but gave Kinley the customary “come tomorrow” instruction as he was “too busy.”

The next day, the officer was absent both in the morning and afternoon. Kinley finally got hold of the officer in the evening only to be told that it was late so he should again “come tomorrow.” The TCC, however, will have you believe its grievances have not been considered. Officials say that assumptions and accusations made by people are so demoralizing that new TCC employees detested joining the corporation.

According to the TCC’s Population Survey of 2000, Thimphu’s population was over 43,000, excluding people in the RBA, RBG, the embassies, IMTRAT, and the floating population. In the light of this large customer base, the TCC feels overburdened, especially since it suffers constraints of acute manpower shortage, as well as lack of resources, equipment and mobility. The TCC also points out that, with a new government in place today, new policies are cropping up in all the 10 ministries. The TCC has been burdened like never before, the municipal boundary for 2003-2027 having been increased from eight square km to 26 square km at one go, without additional resources.

The inclusion of new sectors being clubbed to the TCC, like education and urban roads, has added to its workload. On an average, one TCC official sees to about 25 people a day. And only one official deals with four local area plans when, ideally, at least a team of 10 people should handle one local area plan. Amid this pandemonium, the TCC has problems recruiting additional people because of the mismatch in the job market. “We urgently need professionals like specialists in municipality works, architects, sociologists, and planners,” said the officiating thrompon, Phuntsho Gyeltshen.

Admitting that there have been loopholes in the system in the past, he said that the TCC staff was sincerely working on turning things around but people should not expect a drastic change overnight.

He said that while it was not possible for a TCC staff member to cater to only one person’s needs, people expected the staff to be there for them whenever they walked into the office. Oftentimes, it was the staff, not the public, who was harassed. “When we don’t have time to respond to their needs during the day some of them come looking for us after office hours. We often work overtime and sometimes we are on duty even on the weekends, like for clean-up campaigns, and then we are accused of not doing our jobs,” said Tshering Phuntsho, the Chief Urban City Planner.

Regarding the land issue, the officiating Thrompon said that the TCC had systems in place and, if one fulfilled all the procedures, there was nothing the TCC could do about it. However, nothing would prevent foulplay better, he advised, than land owners making regular checks on paperwork regarding their land holdings.

The Public Relations Officer said that it would be beneficial for people to log into the TCC website or drop by the office and check the notice board for the numbers of land transactions taking place.

So the TCC struggles with the near impossible task of keeping Thimphups happy. And there may be no light at the end of the tunnel – the population of Thimphu, which one of the fastest growing urban centres in the world, is expected to increase four-fold to about 160,000 by 2027.

By Tashi Wangmo

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