Governance

May 30th is the last date for paying your property tax in advance, if you want to avail discount. But the problems in your account have not been fixed in the BBMP portal to collect taxes, in spite of having a complete year at their (BBMP) disposal. So in all probability, you will end up paying inaccurate amount this year as well, if your account had a problem last year. The wrong calculations of last year are being carried forward this year as well. Those who paid as ‘early birds’ with highertaxes due to revision in tax as well as…

In the first part of the interview, you saw Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood speaking about various issues related to traffic management in the city. In this second and last part of the interview, he makes elaborate comments about issues such as the most challenging type of crime that Bengaluru police face, the drug menace, of the conflicts between foreign nationals and local people and how prepared are police for the election year. Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood. Pic: Akshatha M How is the nature of crime changing with changing times? What is the most challenging type of…

On the new year’s eve the State government appointed senior IPS officer Praveen Sood as the Police Commissioner of Bengaluru. On the same night, incidents of 'mass molestation' were reported in the city, showing Bengaluru in a bad light. Now that the dust has settled, and the police chief is completing three months in his office, he says he is working with an agenda which he terms as “citizen empowerment.” In a detailed interview with the Citizen Matters, the Police Commissioner tells why it is important for city police to shift from citizen awareness to citizen empowerment - to make…

In our article on monetary compensation available to victims of road accidents, we had mentioned the Solatium Fund, constituted under the Solatium Scheme, under Section 163 (1) of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988, for the payment of compensation to victims of hit and run motor accidents. This came into force with effect from July 1989. Below is a round-up of its most salient features, and the details of the procedure for claiming compensation under it. How is the Fund administered? Contributions to the Fund are made by the General Insurance Corporation according to an agreed formula and the latter nominates one…

Hoskote. East Bengaluru. March 22, 2016. The case of 22-year-old Kishore Kumar, whose bike was hit by an unidentified vehicle and who was turned away by two private hospitals in the city, was reported by several local media. The first hospital reportedly refused treatment to the victim, as he was unaccompanied by family members or any persons known to him and had been taken to the hospital by a good samaritan. Cut to a year later. On March 17, 2017, The Indian Express reported the case of Sunil Patra who was critically injured when a truck rammed into his motorcycle…

Many may have missed this small snippet of news, but the Special Officer, Corporation Commissioner D Karthikeyan has already passed the Greater Chennai Corporation budget, reportedly on March 14. Details of the budget are however being withheld in the name of election code of conduct, in view of the imminent by-elections in RK Nagar. While one can understand that the announcement of welfare measures related to RK Nagar could violate the election code of conduct, it is difficult to see why the entire budget details have to be withheld. And one cannot hold back the feeling that an elected council…

Bengaluru is almost entirely dependent on the state of Karnataka for its electricity supply; nothing wrong in with that in appearance. However, inability of the state to respond consistently to the city’s power demands coupled with the failure to diversify its power generation sources impose a large hurdle on the city’s competitiveness and quality of life. BESCOM, the institution responsible for power distribution in eight districts of Karnataka including Bengaluru Urban and Rural, accounts for almost half of the state’s total demand out of which 2,400 MW are reserved for Bengaluru. With a total electricity demand of about 7,000 MW…

As we have seen in an earlier article, the Government of India, as it works to implement the Smart City Initiative of the MOUD, has realised the need for a paradigm shift in education and recruitment of urban municipal staff in the country. Perhaps in alignment with this perceived need, the NDA government is reportedly set to take architecture education out of the purview of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and allocate it to the Urban Development Ministry, as reported by The Indian Express recently. It is further reported that this was despite the HRD Ministry’s opposition to…

Real estate makes for booming business in Chennai as well as the rest of India despite recent setbacks. Many people want to own a house or buy one for tax-saving reasons. Chennai being a metropolis currently witnesses fewer individual houses being constructed and more transactions of apartments or similar buildings. This means that it is not only enough to verify the land registration and encumbrance certificates, but also a host of other required certificates from the town planning authority, CMDA, and others. How do builders fare in this? Not very well if court cases are an indication. The Madras High…

Bruhat Bengaluru Nagara Palike (BBMP) has its branches in every ward. They are called ward offices, and they will have the assistant engineers, junior health inspectors, work inspectors, garbage supervisors and all other important stuff related to your ward. So, you need to know where your ward office is, to get anything done from BBMP. To help everyone in Bengaluru who is searching for their ward office, Opencity.in is mapping the ward offices of all 198 offices of Bengaluru, through this form. Since the form involves collecting the location data, you might be prompted to share your location. You can…