On Wednesday, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BB MP) will complete one year of its formation - stretching over 800 square kilometres area with the inclusion of seven new City Municipal Council (CMCs), one Town Municipal Council (TMC) and 110 villages to the then-existing BMP. It was on January 16, 2007 that the State Government issued the final notification to expand the BMP into BBMP.

The administration of erstwhile Yelahanka, K R Puram, Bommanahalli, Byatarayanapura, Rajarajeshwarinagar, Mahadevapura, Dasarahalli CMCs and Kengeri TMC ended, giving way to five new zones and 20 divisions. The BBMP was the result of a huge merger of new areas totalling its jurisdiction to about 800 square kilometres in place of the 225 sq km limits of the erstwhile BMP.

The BBMP however, failed to provide basic amenities to residents of these new areas.

Soon after the formation of the BBMP, Palike Administrator Dilip Rau had said that the challenge before the Palike was to provide basic amenities like roads, water, street lights, underground dr ai nage to these newly-included areas. He had said that these facilities of garbage disposal, drinking water supply, street lights, drai nage, survey for collection of property tax, strengthening Palike workforce and recruitment of staff for internal administration would be taken up.

It has now been a year since the formation of the BBMP, but the new areas have not seen any real changes except having the Palike tag; citizens feel that the earlier CMCs were better.

BBMP officials provide the details of funds released and the developmental programmes designed for these areas, but residents and former councillors com plain that they remain only on paper, and are not implemented.

Former councillors claim that they were better than Palike officials, and people now have to run from pillar to post to get simple problems solved. They allege that the Palike officials lack knowledge of the ground realities of the localities.

Adding to this, the problems of land mafia, and rise in land price have spread to these areas. Agricultural activities have now come to a standstill in many areas. Despite the lack of basic amenities, people living in the City would like to build their dre am houses in these areas.

And since they are now included in the BBMP, property tax and registration fees have increased, and the swo rd of Akrama-Sakrama law is also hanging over the heads of people in these areas.