PRESS RELEASE

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) presented its budget last week. Janaagraha, a non-governmental organisation working in urban affairs, analysed the budget. While the actual receipt of property tax was at Rs 1725 crores, estimated collection for 2018-19 is Rs 2,675 crore. Here is the summary of analysis. All amounts in Rs Cr unless otherwise stated; all growth rates on compounded basis unless otherwise stated. Budget trend Table 1: Budget Trends   Actuals Actuals Actuals Actuals RBE BE Particulars 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 Receipts 3,093 4,205 5,246 6,572 7,514 9,322 YoY receipts %   36% 25% 25% 14% 24%…

Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC) recently released the fund utilisation report of MLAs under their Local Area Development Scheme (2013-14 to 2016–17) through a web page. B.PAC undertook this study focusing on the 27 Assembly constituencies in Bengaluru Urban to observe the pattern of spending on activities. The data was collated for the MLA’s across 27 constituencies in Bengaluru Urban for the fiscal years 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 from Govt sources. The activities undertaken by the MLA’s under local area development scheme were classified as per KLLAD guidelines issued by Government. The activitywise spending across all the constituencies has been…

This statement concerns the recent proposal by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to lease its newly constructed super-specialty hospital to Narayana Health for a period of 30 years. The hospital occupies 20,000 sq ft on Broadway Road in Shivajinagar. The Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties sees this proposal as sign of intended theft against the people of this city with a view to deny them a very basic human right, the right to healthcare. This plan goes against the public interest of ensuring that every resident in this city has access to healthcare, and is another example of private companies…

In the year 2017, data collected by Housing and Land Rights Network India (HLRN) reveals that government authorities, at both the central and state levels, demolished over 53,700 homes, thereby forcefully evicting, at a minimum, 260,000 (2.6 lakh) people across urban and rural India. The total number of persons affected has been calculated by multiplying the number of homes demolished by the average household size according to the Census (4.8). However, many demolished houses had more than one family, and most of the affected families have more than five persons. The real number of people displaced is therefore likely to…

Who we are: We are a group of four engineering students from the University of Washington working in collaboration with a local environmental NGO. For the past two months, we have been learning about Bengaluru’s relationship with its water resources. Our team has taken a particular interest in the city’s groundwater supply. We are reaching out to engaged citizens to gather feedback on our project. Background and problem Groundwater monitoring is essential in understanding the availability of underground aquifers. In the city of Bengaluru, only around half of the city serviced by Cauvery water through BWSSB’s distributed system while the…

In response to the statement issued by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board refuting the findings of the air-quality monitoring work released by Co Media Lab and Climate Trends, the organisations have in turn issued a clarification that the exercise was done to measure peak hour pollution levels in the city for a select amount of time on select routes in the morning as well as in the evening. The objective of the study was to measure and bring to fore the personalised exposure levels one is being subjected to while traveling on busy roads for a few hours every…

The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board has issued the following rejoinder on 22nd February to the press release by Climate Trends, on the air quality data monitoring exercise, published on 19th February. [Update] On 23rd February, the team behind the study, Climate Trends and Co Media Lab issued an addendum to clarify the points made in KSPCB's statement below.  On 21st February 2018, Co- Media Lab and Climate Trends have released the report on air quality of Bengaluru City, where it is reported that there are huge gaps in the KSPCB data on the smaller particulate matter ( PM 2.5).…

Bengaluru Political Action Committee (B.PAC) submitted strong objections to BESCOM’s proposal for increase of electricity tariff by 0.85 Pa for FY-19 based on extensive data analysis. Submissions were made during Public Hearing held at Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) office. Revathy Ashok, Managing Trustee, B.PAC and T.V. Mohandas Pai, Vice President, B.PAC made the submissions before the commission on February 19, during the public hearing conducted by KERC. Highlights of B.PAC’s submissions: Distribution Loss: KERC has approved distribution loss of 12.75% for FY 18 (up to Nov 2017). BESCOM distribution loss is presented at 11.86%. Further analysis of data of…

Bengaluru's air quality crisis, unlike that in the cities of the north, is a silent one; most online ambient stations which provide information to the public paint a fairly clean picture of the city’s air, though most of its citizens feel otherwise. In an effort to understand the palpable pollution levels in the air we breathe, in comparison to the ambient data being generated by the KSPCB, Co Media Lab and Climate Trends carried out a 7-day air quality monitoring exercise with the help of a low-cost monitor used to measure personalised exposure levels. The activity was spread over a…

Two more labourers, Ramu (age 25 ) and Ravi (age 28 ), from Raichur died in a septic tank at the Yum Lok restaurant in AECS layout in Bengaluru. These deaths are a result of failure of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KPSCB) and the BBMP to strictly implement guidelines around the construction and maintenance of commercial establishments. Section 7 of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, expressly prohibits employment of persons for hazardous cleaning of a sewers or septic tanks and any contravention of this section is cognizable and a non-bailable offence…