Wage bill Rs 137 crore a year: Greater Bengaluru Authority system needs 1,200 more staff

Bengaluru: Bengaluru’s new governance experiment — the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) and five municipal corporations — will come with a higher price tag.

The city’s sanctioned civic workforce is expected to grow by more than 1,200, costing the exchequer an additional Rs 137 crore a year.

Activists, however, believe that more staff do not necessarily translate into better services.

With the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) set to cease functioning from September 2, the state government is working on a new organisational structure for both the GBA — a first-of-its-kind apex body — and the five municipal corporations carved out of Bengaluru.

However, there is no clarity yet on the final number of wards, as officials are weighing the pros and cons of different figures ranging from 300 to as many as 500.

Currently, the BBMP has 18,790 employees against the sanctioned strength of 22,411. Under the new system, the total requirement is estimated to touch 23,689, an increase of 1,278 from the existing sanctioned strength. Since the BBMP is short-staffed, there will be a need to recruit nearly 4,900 employees to meet the sanctioned strength under the new structure.

The increase in workforce is attributed to multiple factors. For instance, the GBA alone is estimated to have 314 employees, while the newly formed Bengaluru Smart Infrastructure Ltd (B-SMILE) — tasked with implementing big-ticket projects — will have 107 employees.

Each of the five corporations will employ between 2,163 and 4,315 personnel, including both technical and non-technical staff.

Sanitation workers — responsible for maintaining ward roads — will form the largest group, comprising 16,807 employees, nearly the same as at present.

New recruitment is expected in areas such as finance and accounts, town planning, information technology, legal affairs, public health, survey and revenue.

The figures are likely to vary after the government finalises the number of wards. Based on population projections, it’s learnt that Bengaluru West corporation may have the highest number of wards, while Bengaluru East may have the lowest.

What can be noted is that the East corporation is expected to generate more revenue than the West. For now,
the government is learnt to have decided to create a total of 50 divisions and 150 sub-divisions for the five corporations.

Additional Chief Secretary of the Urban Development Department, Tushar Girinath, told DH the final number of wards will be determined by a delimitation commission, which is yet to be formed.

“The government will provide certain guidelines based on which the number of wards will be decided by the commission along with ward boundaries. We are currently working on the organisational structure, but reports claiming there will be 450 wards are incorrect,” he clarified.

R Rajagopalan, convener of the Bengaluru Coalition, a collective of citizens,
said the fundamental issues that made the BBMP dysfunctional will persist if practices such as “cash for posting” continue.

“At the heart of any institution is its people, and a lack of qualified administrators and skilled engineers can remain the root cause of the problem. Moreover, there must be focus on systems, processes and talent and skill development to ensure good governance. The GBA is top-heavy and only notionally decentralised,” he remarked.