Palike Council rejects proposal to bifurcate BBMP

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council on Thursday passed a unanimous resolution opposing the bifurcation of the civic agency and recommended for a separate governing law for Bangalore in place of Karnataka Municipal Corporation (KMC) Act.

The proposal to bifurcate the BBMP was turned down during a special meeting convened by Mayor B S Satyanarayana, after the government sought suggestion of the BBMP council on this matter following a letter from the district in-charge and Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy to the Chief Minister.

Reddy had cited the recommendation of former chief secretary A Ravindra and other urban experts for the division of the civic agency.

Corporators cutting across party lines strongly opposed the bifurcation of the BBMP, saying that it would deal a blow to the cultural heritage, historic significance and Kannada language besides creating divide among people.

Debating the issue, Kacharakanahalli corporator Padmanabha Reddy opposed the move and suggested that the government have a better option of decentralising powers to all the zonal commissioners.

“Let the Palike have IAS officers as zonal commissioners while the Palike commissioner’s position should be elevated to chief commissioner.”
Padmanabha Reddy said the division of the Delhi Municipal Corporation did not solve problems there. Instead, it created divide among the people with South Delhi remaining backward. He also saw conspiracy in the move when 10 months were left for the Palike elections.
JD(S) floor leader R Prakash said that such a move would hurt the sentiments of people, who respect the cultural heritage of the City. It would also be an insult to the founder of Bangalore, Naada Prabhu Kempegowda.

Another Belgaum
Prakash also warned that such a drastic step would create a Belgaum-like situation  in Bangalore, where people may clash over linguistic issues.

Opposition leader in the Council, Manjunath Reddy, while opposing it blamed former bureaucrat A Ravindra, who had suggested the bifurcation of the City.

Congress Corporators M K Gunashekar, M Nagaraj, Govindaraj, Floor leader of the council Ashwath Narayana Gowda, BJP corporators H Ravindra, N R Ramesh, former Mayor D Venkatesh Murthy and Gangabyraiah too opposed the move on various grounds.

BBMP Commissioner M Lakshminarayana said he would not comment on the pros and cons of the bifurcation of the BBMP, but he would convey the Council’s resolution to the State government.

‘Administrative failure’

While opposing the bifurcation of the BBMP, Malleswaram MLA Dr C N Ashwath Narayana said the Palike should have focused on improving the administration by bringing in a better grievance redressal system and transparency in its functioning.

He said the Palike is heading for administrative failure because it pushed the strict implementation of the GIS-based road history and property identification number to the back burner.

“Officials never wanted the road history to be implemented. To sabotage the initiative, the officers intentionally gave wrong addresses of the locations on the website. We are the victims of a lack of delivery system, enforcement and accountability of the officers,” said the MLA.

He stressed devising a mechanism to provide details of inflow and outflow of revenue.