What were people expecting from the transport minister after the Keshtopur bus tragedy earlier this month? Possibly nothing at all, judging from the brazen irresponsibility of most of his public statements after the accident, which eventually killed 22 men, women and children and shattered the lives of many. Calcutta has put up with the arbitrary dangerousness of a political leader like Mr Subhas Chakraborty long enough to stop hoping for any sudden change in the way he functions. So it comes as no surprise at all that the first series of meetings with the minister and various public-transport-related bodies have come to no decisions at all regarding any of the crucial issues arising out of the incident. Such meetings have been organized with a sort of deadening regularity in the last decade and a half, after similar disasters, and to as little avail. Like the last time this happened, a committee has been formed with bus owners, workers and passengers, but replacing the existing, and lethal, commissioning system with proper salaries for the drivers and conductors has again reached the usual stalemate during this series of meetings. This is the most crucial issue, and it remains as unresolved as in the last fifteen years or so.

Mr Chakraborty is now trying to deflect attention from private buses and illegal auto-rickshaws towards private cars. This strategy is, as usual, founded on his hallmark combination of ignorance and peremptoriness of a very low order. Certain other measures have been ‘agreed on’, to do with drivers’ qualifications, safety features in buses, the kind of tyres that may not be used, and so on. But official regulations have never been a problem. It is when the regulators, including the topmost ones, wink at human disaster with impunity that the full measure of the crisis begins to dawn on this city’s hapless inhabitants.