3 months on, local panels yet to meet in 116 wards

A ward committee meeting held at Murphy Town on February 2, 2019. DH FILE PHOTO

It has been three months since the BBMP made ward committee meetings mandatory. More than half of the civic body’s 198 wards are yet to fall in line.

Data compiled by DH shows that only 82 wards conducted the meetings in the past three months. Jakkur, Vidyaranyapura, Kadugodi, HSR Layout, Begur, Anjanapura and Doddabidarakallu are some of the wards to have conducted the meetings.

Wards such as Jnanabharathi, Nagarabhavi, VV Puram, Chickpet, Bilakahalli, Arakere, Basavanapura, Agara, Uttarahalli, Hemmigepura, KR Puram, Jalahalli, Pattabhiram Nagar and Jayanagar East have not conducted a single meeting as yet.

It was in October 2018 that Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun announced that ward committee meetings must be held regularly. BBMP Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad not only issued a circular in this regard but also conducted a training programme to explain the dos and don’ts of the meetings and who all can attend them.

Saraswathi N, a resident of Chamarajpet who wishes to be a ward committee member one day, regretted that fewer wards were conducting the meetings but welcomed the idea nonetheless. “I feel it’s a great move. There are some corporators and ward committee members who are keen to take up ward-level issues,” she said.

Ramachandra, a resident of JP Nagar 2nd Phase, believes more wards would come on board only when citizens and corporators actively push for it.

“For a city as big as Bengaluru, it is important for residents and corporators from the core as well as peripheral areas to take action and make it happen,” he said.

While the mayor has conducted all the three meetings in her ward (Jayanagar-153) and the BBMP commissioner published the details of property tax collected in the Sanjaynagar ward, some residents believe it’s a good example for other wards to follow.

Mark the diary

Date: February 16

Venue: The Chancery Pavilion, Residency Road

Registrations begin at 4.30 pm

Ward committees

Number of wards in BBMP: 198

No of wards that have conducted meetings so far: 82

No of wards which have not conducted any meeting: 116

The meeting should be held on the first Saturday of every month