Agenda for a kind Bengaluru

A call to the new government

We often make wishlists for a new government and then get wary of the same! A separate Bengaluru Act is a start but it doesn’t embed fiscal decentralisation. A unified transport authority is a start but it doesn’t subserviate to a comprehensive plan. Reform often rolls in on incremental wheels and needs an unabating nudge.

The problem, however, festers elsewhere.

There are about 1,000 people entering Bengaluru every day. We imagine them getting off aeroplanes and making a beeline to software jobs but most arrive by bus or train to work in the informal sector—as security guards, janitorial staff, gig workers, construction workers etc. Where and how do these people find shelters every day? We know not!

An unequal city

While lakhs of women work in the informal sector as salespersons, street vendors, sanitation workers or domestic helpers, no one wonders how they juggle home and work daily. Their timings are often in between domestic duties, and their labour is part-time, they hold multiple jobs simultaneously, earning about half the male wages.

Public transport timings are designed mainly for standard 9-5 male officegoers. Bus handles overhead are too high—not designed for women. Metro is expensive, share autos illegitimate, Anganwadis far away, water is piped only at certain hours of the day, and there is no place to change or even sit, once outdoors!

Children under 15 make up at least 20% of the city. They commute daily to school. They need entertainment amenities and a city that makes them less dependent. However, they have little or no say on transport, safety, liveability and amenities of the city.

Satellite studies by various organisations show over 2,500 slums in Bengaluru; the Slum Development Board still shows numbers between 500-800—outdated and out of touch with reality. Basic amenities like toilets and drainages needed for a dignified human life are missing.

Multi-storeyed low-cost dwellings have no lifts, electricity for a few hours, and no piped water, forcing women, pregnant, infirm and aged to carry bucket-fulls up several flights. The sunlight that illuminates elite apartment complexes does not reach slums, rendering them invisible to the state.

The call for inclusivity

The call to the new government of Karnataka is to put a fresh lens on their view of Bengaluru. The deliberate blindness to various kinds of people the city hosts can make it difficult to define what the city should be.

Here’s an example. The previous government had announced free bus passes for working women, provided their employers would bear half the cost. This would need the women to convince their employers, get letters attested, have identity proofs ready, stand in a queue at the bus depot, get documents validated for the issue and carry the pass. A simple consultation with potential beneficiaries would have clarified that free travel is the least overhead for both women and the state.

How do we enable a truly inclusive, participative city? By expanding the circle of who has a say in how and what the city gets, where it gets it and who gets to use it. Election season made it obvious that aspirants across the spectrum have the ability to reach every voter through multiple channels. Why can’t government build bridges to diverse polity then? The city belongs to all residents and they must be allowed, as peers, to negotiate its shape, form and functioning.

So, how can the new government make the city inclusive?

Double the size of Ward Committees: Wards are too big for just 20 citizens to be active advocates with the administration. Half, as with the population, should be women. Women make up the majority of civic activism but are underrepresented in formal institutions, including Ward Committees. It can have 1/5th children and young adults, and 1/4th slum residents.

Slum welfare associations: Pass legislation to enable Slum Welfare Associations, along the lines of RWAs and Apartment Associations to collectivise their bargaining power towards city, state and Union budgets. The collectivisation of the higher and middle-income groups has ensured relatively more functional roads, water, electricity, drainage and garbage. However, slums do not get a good per capita budget.

Gender Budget: Make public the state of Bengaluru with regard to the ratio of gender spend on publicly-funded social, institutional and transport infrastructure. Include costs like primary health centres and hospitals with female-specific amenities, sports infrastructure in public stadiums, sports hostels and training facilities, working women’s and student hostels run by state, school, college, and sports scholarships, women’s toilets in public spaces and buildings etc. Audit public infrastructure and establish a baseline for Bengaluru to fund females versus males.

Migrant housing: As Bengaluru grows, construction works are increasing, and people working in the sector need homes, toilets and water. Mandate the provision of low-rent, deconstructable, temporary migrant housing in every ward to preclude new shanties, settlements and squatting.

Uneven development will not make for a liveable, safe and kind city. Only a kind State can ensure a liveable and sustainable Bengaluru for everyone.

(The author is a co-founder of Citizens for Bengaluru and Political Shakti)