Earlier, every proposal discussed and passed by the respective 12 BMC committees was placed directly before the MiC for final approval. Now, all of them will be routed via the Expenditure Management Committee, which will decide on the priorities, he explained. However, ongoing projects will not be disturbed by the sub-committee and only future projects will be taken up. The sub-committee will also discuss the issue ofearning revenue from various residential and commercial properties in the city.

Satam also said the BMC will soon felicitate Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during his April visit to Mumbai. However, he was unable to answer why the BMC should felicitate the prime minister when the Union government has still to hand over the promised Rs 1,000 crore to compensate for its deficit. He said: ``The Union government has already agreed to pay us Rs 100 crore in the next fiscal year.''

Meanwhile, the Y2K bug has finally bitten the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking. At the mayor's press conference today, BEST Chairperson Arvind Nerkar said the MiC has given them the green signal to solve the computer-related `Year 2000' problem at a cost of Rs 14.9 lakh.``If we had hired a private firm, it would have cost at least Rs 1.13 crore. Hence I am proud that the BEST is trying to solve the Y2K internally at a minimum cost of Rs 14.9 lakh,'' Nerkar said.

Around 20 computer experts from theBEST will soon begin to try and find a solution to the problem as nearly 125 computer programmes are currently being used by the BEST, for individual electricity billings and accounting purposes, for instance.

The Y2K problem concerns the total breakdown of computers worldwide on New Year's Day, when the machines will fail to read the date as 2000 AD. They will simply read it as `00'.