Old woes, new commissioners: Is a better Bengaluru within reach?

Dissolved BBMP leaves behind a mountain of problems.

Bengaluru: When the sun sets, commuting on the service road between Babusapalya and Kasturi Nagar becomes a struggle. The stretch, which remains busy round the clock as it connects key parts of Bengaluru from Kempegowda International Airport, is riddled with potholes, and most of the streetlights have not been working — not just for days, but for several months.

The grievance is no secret. Officials are aware, yet no solution has been provided.

Civic complaints like these are piling up across Bengaluru, causing inconvenience to citizens on a daily basis. The Sahaaya 2.0 app alone receives about 300 grievances a day. Many more flood social media. Countless others go unreported, as citizens assume the authorities will act on their own — though that rarely happens. This is despite adequate funds being allocated for the maintenance of infrastructure and services.

In its 2025-26 budget, the now-dissolved Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had earmarked Rs 39.50 crore for maintaining flyovers, underpasses and subways — three times more than in previous years. Grants allocated for the maintenance of rajakaluve (stormwater drains) were doubled to Rs 64.52 crore, while arterial roads got Rs 50 crore for their upkeep, and streetlights Rs 78 crore.

While money exists on paper, very little change is seen on the ground. With oversight and punitive action missing, it is learnt that some engineers have become more confident in inflating numbers in the measurement books than they were five or ten years ago. Since details on how funds at the local or neighbourhood level are used are rarely made public, it is a struggle even for active citizens to get things moving.

Garbage is another sore point. Bengaluru was ranked among the worst metropolitan cities in solid waste management in the recently released Swachh Survekshan survey. This is despite the BBMP providing Rs 850 crore for collection and transportation of garbage. On top of this, the government also formed an exclusive entity for handling garbage responsibilities by taking it out of the BBMP’s ambit.

With the now-dissolved BBMP failing to improve efficiency and address grievances of citizens, many hope the five newly created municipal corporations will offer better solutions.

K S Kangheyan, a social worker from Mahadevapura, is hopeful. “Unlike earlier, grievances can now be escalated within each corporation. This could make public access easier. So far, the special commissioners of the BBMP rarely responded to calls or messages,” he said. He also welcomed the move to bring lakes and stormwater drains under one umbrella, unlike the earlier centralised system.

Citizen groups echo the optimism. R Rajagopalan, convener of the Bengaluru Coalition — a citizens’ collective — said decisions could now be quicker, with files no longer required to travel to Hudson Circle. “In the previous system, zonal commissioners had very limited powers compared to commissioners today. The transition, however, will be painful, especially for people waiting on khata-related services and plan approvals,” he added.

Some commissioners are already making changes. P Rajendra Cholan, commissioner of the Bengaluru City Central Corporation, has introduced a Rs 25 lakh revolving fund for quick road repairs. “This way, engineers can act without getting stuck in procedures. What matters is that funds are used responsibly, with clear accountability,” he said.

Other corporation commissioners — now at the helm of affairs — have been hitting the ground almost daily, trying to get a grip on issues plaguing their jurisdictions. A day after a school bus nearly toppled on the Panathur–Balagere road, Bengaluru East Corporation Commissioner D S Ramesh inspected the stretch with engineers — a rare gesture earlier. Similar issues that were very local in nature but critical for improving the lives of citizens were not taken seriously by authorities in the past.

But questions remain over budgets. While authorities may have the intent to fix long-pending civic issues, the bigger concern is whether they will have the money to do so. With limited resources, the corporations might barely survive. It is not clear how much of the corporations’ budgets will be earmarked for maintenance, beyond administrative costs such as salaries and pensions. Much of the state and central grants are expected to be routed to the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), leaving the five corporations — carrying a mountain of problems — with little room to bring about meaningful change.

Anticipating these concerns, Clement Jayakumar, a member of the Mahadevapura Taskforce, said it was too early to judge the new governance structure. “We may see real differences only after April 2026, when individual corporations present their own budgets. For now, the GBA has allocated funds based on the old BBMP budget. There are plenty of inspections, but little actual work on the ground because of the funding crunch,” he said.