BBMP budget: What are citizens’ concerns?

With an increased outlay, the budget will be prepared based on limited inputs from MLAs and a few citizens. Is it enough to make it inclusive?

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is gearing up to present its biggest-ever budget this time, with the overall outlay expected to reach Rs 18,000 to 20,000 crore this year.

Last year, the BBMP’s budget outlay was Rs 13,116 crore. The state government, this time, will infuse Rs 7,000 crore to the BBMP, while it was Rs 3,000 crore last year. In addition, central grants have also been increased.

How the historically fund-crunched city council will use these funds, how much would be the ward-wise allocation, how much would be used for overall citywide plans, and on what basis would the allocation be made —these questions remain unanswered.

In addition, people point out the lack of transparency, mismanagement of funds, and the history of corruption, as well as keeping bills pending, to say that the money infused will not be spent on things whose outcomes would be visible.

The absence of an elected council has added to the problem. The city has been functioning under an administrator since September 2020, as the elections were not conducted in time due to various issues, including the delimitation of Bengaluru wards.

Bengaluru Residents Welfare Association founder R Rajagopalan questions the lack of transparency and participatory preparation in the budget-making process, where city residents’ inputs are not considered enough.

“In the past few years, we have submitted our inputs, which went into a box. However, nothing came out of it. Everything BBMP does is opaque, unilateral, unrealistic and impractical,” he adds.

“Participating in or supporting such poor governance and inefficient use of public funds without transparency, devolution and decentralisation in place first is pointless,” he rues.

He suggests that a professional external audit should be undertaken comparing BBMP budget plan vs actuals for the last five years “to assess this token futile exercise they spend public resources on every year.”

The reason he is asking for this is the possible mismanagement of funds and inefficient usage of funds. “They probably spent crores upgrading ZC offices across the eight zones last fiscal while claiming there was no money in their coffers to pay for the basics, not even waste management,” he explains, adding that many high-end luxury items were purchased. At the same time, the BBMP says there is no money for essential things.

“What percentage of funds gets deployed for actual service and project outcomes? Probably less than 20-30% can be measured in tangible terms. The rest of it just evaporates. Also, there is no equitable, priority-based distribution,” he adds.

“Last year, they allocated a mere Rs 35 crore for lakes. Then they talk about Climate Action Plan, clueless as to what it takes to help manage a lake,” he adds.

“Without an elected body and council, there is no ward-level demand assessment; no one even knows what’s needed at the ground level to do a bottom-up assessment. Decentralisation is not asking zonal commissioners or zones for budget input,” Rajgopal argues.

An official in the know says online consultations were done with citizens to seek input. An email ID was given to the public, and boxes were placed where citizens could give their opinions and input on the budget. They say these will be used while finalising the BBMP budget.

In addition, the Bengaluru Development Minister is scheduled to meet the members of the city legislative assembly, who are also partially responsible for everything that happens in the wards in their constituency. The input collated will help create a balanced budget, said an official.

The official added that monthly ward committee meetings have given the BBMP an understanding of what is needed in those particular wards and will help the administration prioritise money allocation.

The flip side is that ward committees are not completely legal because there is no elected council and corporator who should be the head of the ward committee, and not all wards have active citizens undertaking ward committee work. So, only wards where there are active people will be heard during budget preparation.

Raghavendra Pujari, Programming lead of the Bangalore Political Action Committee, also points out holes in the BBMP budget narrative.

“On the ground level, last year, more than Rs 1600 crore was allocated for Brand Bengaluru programmes, but we are not seeing any effective changes in the city in terms of implementation. Bengaluru remains the same,” he adds.

The presence of an elected council would have made some effect visible in the council,” Raghavendra adds.

“It is impossible for an MLA to keep tabs on what is happening at a ward level. Officials usually decide what should be allocated where.

P R Ramesh, now a nominated member of the Legislative Council (MLC), was elected mayor of Bengaluru in 2003. Knowing how the BBMP works, he says an elected council is necessary for everything related to BBMP, including budget preparation.

“This was the intention behind the 74th amendment, but the absence of a council makes it impossible for citizens’ voices to be heard,” he adds.

“The BBMP officials are now trying to get citizen inputs by asking at the ward level in the ward committee meetings, etc, but it is not 100 per cent. There will be a meeting of members of the legislative assembly to decide the money allocation, which will serve justice to citizens’ voices to an extent. It still is not a replacement for elected members of BBMP council,” he adds.

“The BBMP polls should have been done in 2020 during the tenure of the previous BJP government. Now, the case is in the Supreme Court; the state government cannot do anything unless the court permits it to conduct the election,” he reasons.

“When making a budget in such a situation, a holistic view of the city will help prepare a better budget. Fixing basic systems like waste management, roads, and water with robust implementation and monitoring will help streamline the city.

“There is enough money to fix all systems in the city, but it has to be used correctly,” he feels.