For a Housing Minister, what better place for his office than the premises of MHADA situated at Bandra, about 15 km away from the august environs of Mantralaya? A combination of consternation, pique and a touch of rebellion brought him back to Mantralaya only to find himself placed as a Trishanku on the third floor in Cabin 354 between his two bosses. To meet Rohidas Patil he has to hop a flight of stairs below, to meet Dalwai, he has to negotiate the lift to reach three floors up. At themoment of writing, there is no way he can contact either of his bosses - because neither he nor his Karyalay at the adjacent room 353 have been allotted a telephone yet. And yes, he does not know where to park his car officially. The garages are yet to be allotted to the various ministers. Well, these are temporary pitfalls: at least he is in Mantralaya.

Not so fortunate are seven of his colleagues. Dr Hemant Bhaskar Deshmukh (Labour, Employment and Self-employment), Basavraj Madhavraoji Patil (Rural Development), Mohd Arif Naseem Khan (Food and Civil Supplies, Consumer Protection), Subhash Pandarinath Thakre (Forest, Environment), Sulekha Narayan Kumbhare (Water Supply and Sanitation), Mohan Mahadeo Patil (Horticulture, Welfare of Nomadic, Denotified Tribes and Other Backward Classes, Khar lands) and Gangadhar Sukhdeorao Gade (Tourism), will have to contact their Cabinet rank bosses from the first floor of the Legislative Assembly Building. At present, they have no space in Mantralaya.

All of themhaving been enrolled in the art of governance as first timers, their task is unenviable, would you say? Perhaps; but MM Patil's plight is slightly more unenviable. If his Horticulture Cabinet boss, Ajit Pawar sits on the second floor in Mantralaya, his Nomadic Tribes boss Jaywant Gangaram Awale sits on the first floor. Being a novice, he could keep searching for his Khar Lands boss since the official gazette allotting the portfolios published on November 6 makes no clear mention of who the Cabinet boss of Khar Lands is. Of course, his secretary is there to enlighten him that it belongs to the Revenue department and he will have to report to Ashok Shankarrao Chavan ensconced in Cabin 528 on the fifth floor of Mantralaya. Similar is the case of Dr Vimaltai Nandkishor Mundada housed in Cabin 560. She has to be at the beck and call of three Cabinet ministers: Awale on the first floor for Women and Child Development, Vilasrao Balkrishna Patil on the second floor for Law and Judiciary and Chief Minister VilasraoDeshmukh himself for Earthquake Rehabilitation!

The situation is quixotic only to the beholder, not to the protagonists of governance. After the first Cabinet meeting on Thursday, when Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and his blustering deputy Chhagan Bhujbal announced the rehabilitation of the Minorities Commission and the establishment of the Human Rights Commission, they were asked, tongue in cheek, whether the government had enough space to house the new commissions. Both replied with a straight face that there would be no problem with regards to space. When it was pointed out that seven ministers were operating from out of Mantralaya, the Chief Minister clarified in all seriousness that they would be soon be allotted space in Mantralaya.

Compulsions of coalition politics have caught the bureaucrats in a tizzy. The General Administration Department (GAD) under the Chief Minister has been burning the midnight oil to get the allotment of Cabins to various ministries finalised. A bird whispered that asection of the GAD was up and working till as late as 4 am last week. It finally took four administrative orders to settle the housing of the various ministries, the last two being exclusively for Nawab Malik and Ajit Rao Ghorpade. Now they have to figure out ways to get the ministers operating from Vidhan Sabha back to Mantralaya whose original capacity was geared to accommodate just 45 ministers. And above all, the GAD has still another contentious task to accomplish: allotment of garages to the ministers. Apparently the number of garages available for allotment is less than the number of ministers.

A maze to amaze the ordinary citizen may be; but this is how a government works. And, it is from these echelons a citizen gets governed. Ever since the Election Commission enforced the code of conduct when it announced the dates of the elections in July, till date, little or no work has been accomplished. It is still cabin and garage allotment time. Welcome to Kafka's Castle. In Maharashtra it is calledMantralaya.