Now, after the bill is passed by the upper house - the Legislative Council - the MiC will be scrapped by a simple notification before the budget session concludes on April 23.

Replying to the brief discussion on the bill, Chief Minister Narayan Rane admitted that though the MiC was an ambitious move, it miserably failed to meet the objectives for which it was set up. ``In my opinion, there was absolutely no transparency in the day-to-day working of the corporation as, by and large, secrecy was maintained even in routine matters,'' Rane pointed out.

He said it will be wrong to compare the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, where the MiC has been successfully implemented, and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). ``The problems of the two corporations are entirely different.We have to tackle a population of 1.5 crore and in addition, large-scale problems have to be dealt with in the metropolis, while in Calcutta, the problems are of much lower magnitude,'' Rane added.

In an apparent reference to the reported clashes between Mayor Nandkumar Satam and municipal commissioner Girish Gokhale, Rane said: ``I did not complain about not having enough powers when I was chairman of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking. I got all the developmental works done.''

Congress members Arun Gujarathi, Ashok Dhatrak and Sokhal Lokhandwala expressed their views on the pros and cons of the MiC, while members of the Left parties staged a noisy walkout to protest against the bill.