Another monsoon without corporators in Bengaluru

The city stares at another monsoon and the flood of civic and commute woes associated with it. Like last year, this time too Bengalureans will have to fend for themselves without elected corporators to articulate their problems in a Council.

The entire pandemic year went by without an elected Council. The connect between the local administration and the citizens was lacking. A robust decentralised system overseen by local corporators and managed by democratically selected ward committees could have helped tackle the monsoon woes this year.

Elected in 2015, the Bruhath Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council had completed its term on September 10, 2020.

First posted as the Palike administrator, Gaurav Gupta later became the first chief commissioner under the newly enacted BBMP Act, 2020.

Indications are that the BBMP Council elections are likely to be conducted only after the State Assembly elections in 2023. All major political parties appear to favour this.

“Without an elected representative, you really won’t have control on what the executive is doing, how the funds are being allocated, whether they are being spent in the right way, the priorities are correct or not. For example the BBMP budget is supposed to be made by the standing committee on taxation which is nothing but a group of councillors that are elected by the people. In their absence, the budget is prepared by the officers who may or may not have the insight into the requirements of the citizens in different wards,” says Srinivas Alavilli from Janaagraha.

Check out the latest videos from DH: