JOIN USNew BBMP Act gets mixed response from citizen groups, policymakers
The new Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Act 2020 has evoked mixed response among citizens, policymakers, civic activists and residents’ welfare associations.
Contrary to the government’s view that the act is independent legislation that would decentralise and bring in public participation at various levels of the municipal governance, citizen groups dubbed it a “missed opportunity” to transform the city, barring a few good aspects.
To get the measure of the public opinion about the newly promulgated legislation, DH spoke to a cross-section of the society, including former members of the BBMP restructuring committee, activists, retired bureaucrats, RWAs and political parties.
While people have welcomed the decentralisation measures that would give more powers to zones and wards, many termed it negative without bringing in parastatal agencies like BMTC, Bescom, BWSSB and BDA, among others.
V Ravichandar, part of the three-member expert committee on BBMP restructuring, said the bill is different from their recommendations for the city administration.
“Our committee had worked on a bill that included all parastatal agencies. The one that is passed is purely a BBMP Act. The difference, effectively, is day and night,” he said.
He added that the zonal provisions and articulation of the municipal authorities are better than the existing ones despite grey areas on the roles of the mayor and commissioner. He said the city needs an overall Bengaluru-specific bill catering to the 21st-century problems. But the bill now focuses on the BBMP, which is like solving the 20th-century problems that are now passe.
Tara Krishnaswamy, co-founder, Citizens for Bengaluru, said if other agencies had been brought into the act and allowed to function under the elected council, it would have allowed people to have control over the administration.
“It is surprising that no public consultation was made pertaining to the act of this magnitude, if at all the government’s intention was to truly govern the city in a progressive manner,” she said.
“If the civic body is unable to maintain the existing limits by providing better civic amenities, then what is the use of expanding it even further? Except the real estate and vested interest linked with the politics over these areas, the approach is senseless and illogic as all the evidence suggest the failure of the corporation at every ward,” Tara added.
Citizens group Whitefield Rising called the bill unscientific and lacked the foresight to make Bengaluru the Silicon Valley it deserves to be for the kind of tax citizens pay.
Anjali Saini of Whitefield Rising said: “The villages in the periphery that are proposed to be included into the BBMP limits are better off with the gram panchayats.
They are governed better than the way BBMP is governing the existing wards.
The land value increases by urbanising the peripheral areas where people with vested interests probably own land. The bill has nothing to do with civic services and governance.”
Srikanth Vishwanathan, CEO, Janaagraha said: “The silver lining could be the decentralisation of powers and functions to the zones and wards and citizen participation through ward committees. We need to, however, emphasise to the state government that major missing pieces such as metropolitan governance, spatial planning and financial, human resource capacities, besides digitalisation need to be addressed soon for meaningful change on the ground.”
'Bill a ploy by the ruling BJP to defer civic polls'
Political parties eyeing to get into the city administration view the bill as a ‘ploy’ by the ruling BJP to defer the civic polls without reason.
Shantala Damle, co-convener, Aam Aadmi Party, Karnataka, said: “If the government really wanted to do good to the citizens of Bengaluru, in terms of providing better civic amenities, they should have done it long ago rather than mindlessly passing the bill in a hush-hush manner. The MLAs want to control the works ordered by the BBMP ranging from garbage to civil contracts. The BJP’s shoddy handling of the pandemic situation in Bengaluru, poor roads and floods have upset citizens. The government is clearly afraid to face an election and proposed the new act just to postpone the polls.”
Terming the act a regressive step, Srikanth Narasimhan of the newly founded Bengaluru Nava Nirmana Party said: “We all needed a civic body free from the interference of MLAs. But the very first line of the bill contradicts its own intentions. Progress can only be achieved when the city is unshackled from the clutches of the MLAs and state government, besides making the BBMP a fully empowered autonomous organisation.”