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One commissioner not enough for Bengaluru: Vijay Bhaskar

BBMP administrator says City needs 3 or 4 commissioners
Last Updated 27 May 2015, 19:32 IST

Bengaluru needs at least three or four commissioners so that it can be governed properly, BBMP Administrator T M Vijay Bhaskar has stated. One commissioner, he said, is not enough.

Speaking at a seminar on smart cities organised by the Smart Cities India Foundation (SCIF) at the World Trade Center here on Wednesday, Bhaskar said Bengaluru was too big a city to be governed by just one administrative official, and for results to come, more people would have to have a hand in the City’s governance. “People in Bengaluru expect a lot from the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) head. Each householder would have 10 problems at the very least and they expect the commissioner to solve all of them. That is why you need three or four commissioners. Now, just one person looks after the entire city and this can’t continue if governance has to be the top priority. We need decentralisation of power and authority,” he observed.

The BBMP doesn’t get revenue in line with the budgets being framed as revenue has not kept pace with the expenditure.

“We are trying to prepare a realistic budget. When we compare Mumbai’s revenue with Bengaluru’s, our city has a long way to go. The reason we may not have done as well as Mumbai is because we don’t have rich revenue sources like Mumbai,” Bhaskar said.


Entry tax
Bengaluru’s revenue from entry tax is Rs 300 crore, while Mumbai’s Octroi revenue is Rs 7,700 crore; Bengaluru’s revenue from development planning is Rs 370 crore, while Mumbai’s is Rs 5,000 crore. “Given the vast differences, Bengaluru’s budget has to be realistic. We are trying to prepare a budget of around Rs 5,411 crore knowing well that we don’t have deep revenue pockets. If, for example, your revenue is Rs 3,500 crore, can you have a budget for Rs 9,000 crore?” Vijay Bhaskar asked, adding that he has set up a team to check development works slated for the City. All works would be uploaded online to maintain transparency.

The BBMP, according to him, is short of financial managers. “Personnel are important. If you look at the city managers, 75 per cent are from outside. What ownership and commitment can they demonstrate to the City? How much will they know? We have to change cadre and recruitment rules to ensure that the City has core managers who have worked in the City and who know the City,” Bhaskar explained.

The Palike administrator made the point that people from outside Bengaluru were shocked to hear that “the fastest growing city in India” was slack in its revenue generation compared to its expenditure. “No one seems to believe that a city which has very good office space and retail trends is not able to make enough money to grow.”

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(Published 27 May 2015, 19:32 IST)

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