BBMP

The jurisdiction of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, which extends over 198 wards and 28 Assembly constituencies, has population of more than 1.1 cr. Because of this, providing services and facilities to citizens is becoming a daily struggle. Due to reorganisation, in many cases one assembly constituency is distributed over more than one zone, and this has created difficulties in citizen and administration related tasks. Presently, many major infrastructure works are being implemented in the BBMP jurisdiction, and many more are in the pipeline. In the present system, the concerned Joint Commissioners submit all files pertaining to zones for the approval…

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we looked at the conflict between the BBMP and the state government on allowing advertisement hoardings in Bengaluru. While the former is pushing for a blanket ban on commercial hoardings, the latter wants to allow hoardings. In this part, we explore whether the hoarding ban proposed by BBMP is justified. What is BBMP's revenue from ad hoardings? As per the advertisement scam unearthed by K Mathai, former BBMP Assistant Commissioner (Advertising), the BBMP had lost advertisement revenue of around Rs 2000 crore between 2005 and 2015. This was mainly because of…

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the tussle between BBMP and state government on allowing advertisement hoardings in the city. Last year, the BBMP Council passed draft bye-laws that ban commercial hoardings. But the state government's UDD (Urban Development Department) recently framed its own Rules that allow hoardings. It's still unclear which of these laws would prevail. The High Court recently upheld the BBMP bye-laws at a PIL hearing, but the final judgement is pending in the case. And the UDD continues to insist on implementing its own Rules. In this part of the series, we look…

For a while, Bengaluru has been sporting skeletal metal frames where glossy advertisement hoardings once stood. The city had been stripped of its hoardings after the BBMP Council passed a resolution last year, banning these. The Council also passed the draft Outdoor Signage and Public Messaging Bye-laws, 2018, that would ban all commercial hoardings. But the state government wanted to allow hoardings in the city, which led to a tussle between the government and BBMP. State government's UDD (Urban Development Department) even published a separate set of laws - the BBMP Advertisement Rules, 2019 - this July 15th. These Rules…

City to get air purifiers  About 500 air-purifying devices will be installed at various traffic-heavy junctions in the city, to reduce vehicular pollution. A memorandum of understanding was signed by the BBMP with the software firm aTechTron, which will begin to install the purifiers from the second week of September. About 100 air purifiers will be installed over three months in the first phase. The entire project will be completed within the next year-and-half. At more traffic-heavy junctions such as Silk Board, Marathahalli and Bellandur, more than one device will be installed. The devices are made with patented technology. They…

" City - A city is a large human settlement. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process." (vocabulary.com) Bengaluru has many things to cherish - its beautiful climate, cosmopolitan atmosphere, major IT companies, gardens, lakes and more.  But this article is about another side of Bengaluru, or rather, the real side of Bengaluru. The Bengaluru that has poor traffic management, unplanned layouts, and roads where two cars cannot go at a time. Panathur road exemplifies this side of…

In Part 1 of this series, I narrated how our citizen group surveyed 439 streetlights in Vasanth Nagar this June-July, and identified defective and missing lights. Using our data, we convinced BBMP to take action. BBMP has already fixed nearly half the defective streetlights here, and is expected to complete the rest in another fortnight. Given the condition of streetlights in many parts of Bengaluru, you may want to replicate the survey in your neighbourhood too. During the survey, you can map streetlights either on a Google Map online, or list the details manually in an Excel sheet. I prefer…

Protest against garbage dumping at Bellahalli landfill On Wednesday morning, residents around Bellahalli landfill stopped BBMP's garbage trucks from dumping waste there. Since the last three years, Bengaluru has been dumping waste here. The landfill has become a serious threat to the health and well-being of residents nearby, especially during monsoons, the protestors said. As the protest continued, BBMP used police force to resume waste dumping on Thursday afternoon. D Randeep, BBMP Special Commissioner (Solid Waste Management), said that the protestors had blocked over 300 garbage-laden trucks. Later, BBMP's entire fleet of 450 trucks was sent on a second trip to collect…

BBMP has, for the first time, drafted bye-laws on Solid Waste Management (SWM). Aiming towards complete waste segregation, the bye-laws define eight different streams of waste - wet, dry, sanitary, non-recyclable, non-biodegradable, domestic hazardous, construction and demolition waste, and slaughterhouse waste. It defines specific strategies for processing each of these. The draft bye-laws also prescribe steep penalties for offences such as burning or not segregating waste, for violating the plastic ban, and so on. D Randeep, BBMP Additional Commissioner (SWM), says the penalties have been increased by five times. The bye-laws also have new provisions such as door-to-door collection of e-waste,…

Recent incidents of chain snatching as well as petty theft in our Vasanth Nagar neighbourhood made us realise we needed to do something. There were many dark spots due to the lack of uniform streetlighting -  random gaps between adjacent streetlights, and tree branches covering the light. So, Citizens for Citizens (C4C), a self-help citizens’ forum, decided to carry out a ‘streetlight survey’ in Vasanth Nagar. How are street lights maintained? BBMP has ward-wise contractors to maintain streetlights. If the contractors come to know of a defective streetlight, they may do repairs, but this system is unreliable. BBMP can also…