ward committee rules

With the recent High Court order on April 24th that asked the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to constitute ward committees within a month, the decades-long efforts by the State Government and the BBMP to stall their constitution have come to an end. The 74th Constitutional Amendment (CA) or Nagarapalika Act was passed in 1992, exactly 25 years ago, to give “Power to the People” and bring in decentralisation, transparency, accountability and people’s participation in urban local bodies (ULBs). The State’s conformity legislation to implement the 74th CA was passed in 1994 through an amendment to the KMC Act. Formation…

The Karnataka High Court has directed the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to constitute Ward Committees in Bengaluru within a month! Several earlier orders that asked the civic body to constitute the ward committees had not been conformed with. Ward committees are mandated as per Constitutional 74th Amendment (Nagarpalika) Act, 1992. The direction came as part of a petition filed by Leo Saldanha and others, that said the BBMP is in violation of repeated directions from Karnataka High Court. Leo Saldanha, sharing this news over email, points out, "What would really help now is for public-spirited persons to step up and…

Urban Development Department published ward committee rules in June 2016. The rules will help formation of ward committees and can have citizen participation in ward level. Kathyayini Chamaraj, the co-founder of CIVIC, says that people can now start demanding that BBMP constitute the ward committees for each ward with a total of ten members with 3 women, 2 SC/ST members, 2 local associations and any three other members.Other terms: The committee must meet every month and put up the minutes and resolutions in the ward office. The Ward Committee meetings are open to the public and RWA members should make…

​The Urban Development Department (UDD) has published the draft of the Kamataka Municipal Corporations - Ward committee Rules, 2013 on May 26th 2015. Kathyayini Chamaraj, Trustee CIVIC, says they had not announced or published it on the UDD website. When Citizen Matters checked the website on June 8th 2015, the ticker on the homepage still carried the rules that were gazetted on November 10th 2014.   Kathyayini says that when she enquired about the rules on multiple visits to the UDD office, the standard response was that it would take ten days and the like. When she visited the office on June 4th…

The Urban Development Department (UDD) of the Government of Karnataka invited Namma Bengaluru Foundation(NBF) and Bengaluru Residents Association Confederation Ensemble (BRACE) members to review suggestions on the draft of the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Ward Committee Rules, 2013. The discussion of Ward Committee Consultation Meeting was chaired by T K Anil Kumar, Secretary to Govt, UDD. Officials from BBMP, NBF and Brace members led by Sridhar Pabbisetty participated in this discussion. The meeting was called for as per the directions of the Honourable High Court. The suggestions put forth by NBF and BRACE in September, 2013 were taken on record by the…