Devolve more powers to BBMP

Local self-government, as in the 74th Constitu-tional Amendment, stands vitiated due to lack of political will.

Now that the honeymoon period of two months, since the election of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council is over, it is time for the council to get down to the business of governing city in earnest.

But paradoxically, even as a new mayor has taken charge, a parallel position of a Minister for Bengaluru’s Development and Town Planning has been established at the state level. This arrangement continues to treat the mayor as a mere ceremonial figure-head devoid of executive powers. And what also of the Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) which is the Constitutional body supposed to plan for Bengaluru?

Local self-government, as envisaged in the 74th Constitutional Amendment (CA) or Nagarapalika Act for urban local bodies (ULBs) stands vitiated since more than two decades given the lack of political will to devolve power to the third tier of government.
The MPC was constituted only last year through a court order after 21 years of Constitutional violation, but the state government ensured that the MPC never met for six months, forcing the members to resign in protest.  The Bangalore Development Authority, as a parallel planning body accountable to the state government also continues to exist.

Again, despite court orders to set up ward committees and frame rules for their functioning as per the 74th CA to institutionalise citizen participation, ward committees could not become functional as the necessary rules are yet to be finalised and gazetted (at the time of writing). 

This, after five draft rules were issued over two years, calling for suggestions and objections each time. However, the major demand of the civil society is to remove the veto power given to the councillors on decisions of the ward committee.  But this change can happen only if the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act (KMC) itself is amended and not just the rules.

There are already rumblings of discontent among councillors on the ground that the MLAs are deciding the works, controlling the allocation of funds to wards and are not allowing the councillors to work. If the councillors really valued the Constitutional status of an independent “local self-government” given to the ULBs by the 74th CA, they should have protested against the anomaly of giving voting rights to the MLAs in the ULBs 21 years ago itself, when the KMC Act was first amended to conform with the 74th CA.

Over the years, many councillors are themselves responsible for abdicating their own powers in favour of the MLAs by often asserting that they will act “as per the wishes of the MLA”, who seems to have donned the role of a semi-god.

The same usurpation of the independent powers of the MPC has also happened by giving representation on the MPC to the CM, the Urban Development Minister, all MLAs, MLCs and MPs representing Bengaluru.

Even if they do not have voting powers on the MPC as they are only ‘special invitees’, the MLAs will out-number and overwhelm the ULB representatives in the MPC. Councillors did not protest about this anomaly too when the Act and MPC rules were being framed.
As for devolution of the ‘3Fs’ – funds, functions and functionaries – necessary to “plan for economic development and social justice” – the chief function of ULBs as per the 74th CA – these have remained on paper.

Functions listed in the 12th Schedule annexed to the 74th CA, such as urban planning and poverty alleviation, water supply and sewerage, slum upgradation, protecting the interests of weaker sections etc, are all still held by the state government, or parastatals coming under it, such as the BWSSB and the Slum Clearance Board.

People’s participation

However, the people’s participation platforms within most departments dealing with social sectors, such as vigilance committees under ration shops, the ‘bala vikasa samitis’ in the anganwadis, the school development and monitoring committees in government schools and the ‘arogya raksha samitis’ in government hospitals, mostly have the local councillor as chairperson.

This will indirectly make the municipality responsible for the functioning of ration shops, anganwadis, schools and hospitals. These institutions dealing with basic rights of citizens are still under the state government, while they should have been made accountable to the ULBs.

The current resource crunch in the BBMP can be attributed not merely to its own maladministration, but to the failure by the state government as well as the State Finance Commissions, to devolve the appropriate share of revenues to ULBs to fulfil all the 18 functions foreseen for them in the 12th Schedule.

In view of all these debilities in the state’s conformity legislation to implement the Nagarapalika Act – in the form of amendments to the KMC Act – civil society has been demanding the setting up of a committee to review it.

This, according to them, will be on the lines of the committee constituted recently to suggest changes to the parallel Panchayat Raj Act. A similar exercise for the 74th CA is the dire need of the hour if Bengaluru is to see better governance.