KMC amendment Bill tabled

The State government on Monday tabled in the special session of State Legislature the controversial Karnataka Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2015, seeking to constitute two or more corporations by disbanding the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike.

The Bill, piloted by Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T B Jayachandra in the Assembly, proposes to omit the word BBMP in the KMC Act and substitute it with a corporation till the government completes the exercise of re-constitution of Bengaluru municipal area. It enables the government complete take over of all assets and liabilities of the BBMP.

Though the bill proposes to appoint an Administrator to carry on the administration of the Bengaluru municipal area, the government will have the final say on all policy matters.
The government will appoint an advisory committee consisting not more than 25 persons, who are qualified to become councillors, to assist the Administrator.

The government has already dissolved the BBMP council and appointed senior IAS officer T M Vijay Bhaskar as the Administrator. Interestingly, the bill empowers the government to remove any difficulty that may arise in giving effect to the provisions made through this amendments by issuing an order.

The government has cited difficulty in administration of the BBMP as the reason for the move. “The population of the larger urban area of the city of Bangalore has gone beyond eighty lakhs. Therefore, it is difficult to supervise the implementation of the State or Central schemes.

“For the purpose of smooth administration of the corporation of the city of Bangalore, the expert committee appointed by the government has also recommended in its interim report trifurcation of the corporation. Therefore, it is considered necessary to reconstitute the corporation of the city of Bangalore into two or more corporations,” the bill stated in its statement of objections and reason.