Areas under erstwhile CMCs, TMC, 110 villages need better governance

Merger with BBMP has brought mixed fortunes for people in these places

In 2007, the then Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP), with an area of 226 sq kms catering to a population of 6.5 million, was amalgamated with seven City Municipal Councils (CMC), one Town Municipal Council (TMC) and 110 villages to form Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). This expanded the scope of BBMP to cover 800 sq kms, governing 8.2 million citizens.

The primary rationale for this amalgamation was the poor governance and negligible infrastructure in the CMCs, TMC and the villages, a BBMP restructuring Expert Committee Preliminary Report of December 2014 stated. A case was made that by integrating it with BMP, there was scope to optimize expenditure and bring in efficiencies of service delivery through access to better resources centrally.

The 2007 amalgamation exercise primarily focused on expanding the physical boundaries to bring the extended area as one contiguous urbanised area, states the committee. But there was no roadmap about what was to be done about the peri-urban areas as they become increasingly urban in later years.

At that point of time, it was felt that just adding 98 wards to BMP to make it BBMP would make for vastly improved conditions in the newly added wards.

But the Committee felt things had not worked out as per plans. The panel found that after seven years, there was a gap in expectation and reality on the ground.

“The newer areas, particularly the 110 villages, continue to languish in terms of basic infrastructure even today. Neither governance nor service delivery improvements has accrued from the 2007 amalgamation exercise. This has shown that continuing amalgamation into larger municipalities is unsustainable.

The State Government has realised that there is a need to address the issue of Bengaluru’s future governance and administration model starting with the restructuring of the BBMP,” the experts stated.

What do residents of the newly added areas have to say? Do they differ with the Committee’s findings? Deccan Herald spoke to residents and welfare associations to ascertain whether the amalgamation had improved their living conditions. Reactions were mixed, but the general verdict was that the amalgamation has not worked out well.

B K Ramesh Kumar, a R R Nagar resident in Pattanagere area says not much has improved with amalgamation. “There are numerous problems we face. The underground drainage system has to be overhauled so that the Vrishabhavathi river will not be fed with this waste daily. This feeding has been going on for years. The river is full of sewage and a great health risk to people in the RR Nagar and Pattangere areas.”

The area, he says, receives water only twice a week and sometimes only once a week. “The narrow roads leading to Pattanagere too haven’t been improved. The area still is like a village. There are no parks, playgrounds, schools and libraries in Pattanagere. To this day, drinking water comes to us all in old pipes that were laid during the formation of the CMC. There is no new line for us. People are asking for basic facilities but there is no one to hear and offer solutions.”

Despite big progress in laying of underground drainage pipelines, many pockets in
K R Puram and Mahadevapura areas still suffer from sewage-related problems. Water is another issue. As V Shama Rao, a resident says: “People have to collect drinking water at community taps and borewells. These are the peripheral areas which lack piped water. The more mainstream areas have benefitted as they get access to corporation water apart from borewell water. Water is supplied once or twice a week and not more. Everywhere else in the city, water is supplied three or four times a week  through new pipes.”

T Dasarahalli on Tumakuru Road also has serious water problems. “BWSSB supplies water to the area only once.  We need atleast a two-day supply if not three days just like other areas. Now we have to buy drinking water from a plant at Rs 15 per can,” says Ram Prasad, a resident.

Then there is the question of narrow roads, dug-up roads and garbage. “Garbage is not lifted as there is no system of the daily pick-up scheme that other areas have. This is a remnant of the old CMC sytem under which we did not have daily pick-up system,” he says.