Governance

With less than four months left for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council term to end, there are all indications of the election process witnessing yet another quandary on the lines of last BBMP election. While the Congress councillors are hell-bent on the restructuring of BBMP to take place prior to the polls, the ruling BJP councillors are in no mood to wait for the restructuring to happen. It could be recalled that the Palike was without Council for three years from 2006 to 2009 and the election was held in 2010, only after the High Court intervention. This…

If you wondered why there was no special write up from Citizen Matters for the new year, here’s our excuse. Well, we did have a spectacular plan, however all the folks who needed to be on the same page as us, didn’t really come onboard. So this was our plan - to talk to key people involved in city administration and get them to look back on the past year and share with us their wish list for 2015. This turned out to be much more challenging than we thought. We had identified around ten eminent personalities and began a…

Website of the BBMP Restructuring Committee features the progress made by the Committee. A three-member Government Committee formed in order to work out the modalities of dividing Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has been also entrusted the task of restructuring BBMP. As Ravichandar, one of the members of the BBMP restructuring committee puts it, the Committee aims to structure it in such a way that: quality of life improves in Bengaluru for decades to come quality services are accessed by all citizens; accountability of elected representatives and service providers Bengaluru features among top 50 global cities on liveability The Committee also…

Blast site on Church Street, Bangalore. Pic: Press Trust of India. Just before new year 2015 celebrations begin, Bengaluru saw a real low intensity blast on Sunday night. Three people were injured in the explosion that took place around 8.30 pm, in front of Coconut Grove Restaurant on Church Street, near MG Road. A woman later succumbed to injuries in hospital. Bhavani, a 38-year-old woman from Chennai who was in Bengaluru with her kids for the Christmas vacation, died at Mallya Hospital. She suffered head injury and severe blood loss. Kartik, who is a relative of Bhavani and a student…

The Committee for Restructuring BBMP has released a preliminary report and sought more time to complete the work given to it. The report was released on Tuesday, December 23rd 2014. The report promises more involvement for citizens. It says that a website is under construction and will be an important vehicle to disseminate the committee’s activities and get feedback from stakeholders, particularly citizens. A very important element of the committee’s consultations will be to understand the expectations of citizens from the restructuring exercise, the report states. The committee formed in September 2014 has B S Patil (retired IAS officer), Siddaiah…

We wrote about the detailed procedure for linking Aadhaar card with bank accounts and LPG accounts a year ago. This was when the UPA Government had launched the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme, the scheme where LPG subsidy is transferred directly into bank accounts. A pilot run was conducted in Tumakuru, Mysuru and Bengaluru. Due to elections and various other issues the scheme did not take off then. The newly-elected NDA Government has decided to retain the scheme, and has already launched a pilot once again in 54 districts across India, including Tumakuru, Mysuru and Bengaluru. This scheme will ensure that…

Respected Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, I was delighted to read yesterday’s newspaper report in The Times of India (Only 97 city high-rises have occupancy certificates) that said that your government would “take suitable action against builders who flout the building bye-laws”. As you have rightly said, those who have violated the laws need to be punished, but while this is being done, steps need to be taken to prevent this violation from happening in the first place. It is distressing to note that "only 97 high-rise buildings in the city have obtained OCs between 2009 and 2014". This means that there are…

Over 1000 contract pourakarmikas working in eight zones of BBMP and many supporters gathered on Wednesday at the BBMP head office protesting against the failure of the contractors to pay them monthly wages and BBMPs indifferent attitude in ensuring that powrakarmikas get paid the minimum wages and wages on time. Pourakarmikas from Sunkadakatte area have not been paid since four months. Some of them have not paid their rent and have been thrown out of their rented accommodation by their house owners. In Mathikere, powrakarmikas are being paid only Rs 4,000 a month which is far less than even the…

As urban sprawl in India unfolds at a frantic pace, it’s quite natural to ask: where does a city begin and where does it end? What is the spatial terrain that makes up a city? What should the boundaries of the city government be? These are some fundamental questions that need to be considered while discussing urban governance. These questions become all the more relevant at a time when there are discussions for the division of a city such as Bengaluru into two or three different municipal corporations. While questions on the institutional form of the city government have received…

Suresh, an employee of a private firm, waited patiently at the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) premises, for his name to announced in the flat allotment list. He had applied for a one bedroom flat in Kaniminike, as he trusted the BDA, and was wary of going through any middlemen to purchase a house. He was one among the hundreds who waited with bated breath to see if they would be lucky, in flat allotment that took place on November 27th 2014. In its 4th notification dated February 28th 2014, the BDA called for applications for 4,228 flats (1BHK EWS category…