Deeply flawed: Bengaluru NavaNirmana Party on civic budget preparation

Bengaluru: The Bengaluru NavaNirmana Party (BNP) has termed the preparation of annual budgets by the city’s five municipal corporations as “deeply flawed” and lacking democratic legitimacy, saying a city budget cannot be drawn up behind closed doors without public representation.

With no elected corporators, functional ward committees or area sabhas, a budget prepared without local representation is neither participatory nor accountable, said party founder and general secretary Srikanth Narasimhan.

In the absence of elected bodies, he said, the minimum requirement should have been the involvement of nodal officers, ward-level officials, ward committees and area sabha representatives.

"Unfortunately, even this basic institutional engagement is missing,” he said, adding that budgets reflect priorities and excluding ward-level institutions ignores local needs and citizen feedback.