BBMP era ends in a week; Greater Bengaluru Authority beckons

Bengaluru: Come September 2, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will cease to exist. 

As the operationalisation of the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) and the five newly carved municipal corporations is just a week away, senior IAS officers held a series of meetings on Monday to reassign responsibilities among the workforce and ensure continuity in administration.

The government is expected to appoint commissioners for the new corporations and special commissioners for the GBA by Saturday. This is also because the 30-day window for submitting objections to the five corporations and the 15-day window to scrutinise the inputs will end on September 1.

Until the new offices are built, the zonal offices will serve as the headquarters of the five different corporations: BBMP’s existing office in Hudson Circle for Bengaluru East Corporation, Yelahanka for Bengaluru North, Mahadevapura for Bengaluru East, RR Nagar for Bengaluru West, and Jayanagar for Bengaluru South.

Under each commissioner, who will be overseeing the corporation, there will be a joint commissioner for revenue and two chief engineers. Other than roads, responsibilities of managing lakes and storm water drains will directly come under the ambit of the same chief engineers, it’s learnt. The GBA may have four special commissioners (finance, health, revenue and climate change).

There is, however, still confusion about the roles and responsibilities of GBA given that some of the powers associated with it are currently in the hands of urban development department (UDD), from administrative approval for corporation budgets and projects to appointment and posting of the senior staff. 

On September 3, the government plans to form the delimitation commission to fix boundaries for the wards. The exercise is expected to go on till November 1. This is also the affidavit submitted by the government in the Supreme Court. 

A senior BBMP official said the changes will not directly affect the public. “The idea of forming GBA and five corporations was to bring the municipal government closer to the people. The transition process will be smooth as the existing staff will be assigned by making certain changes. There will not be any major disruption,” he said.