Governance

If someone from the city were playing Pictionary, and they had to guess from a drawing of floods or inundation, they would probably guess "Chennai" and be right. Flooding and Chennai have become synonymous with each other. No wonder the civic body is hurrying up with storm water drain (SWD) work in Chennai. Will SWDs be the panacea for urban floods? "No city in the world can rule out inundation [due to rains]. However, it will be much lesser than before in Chennai," says Gagandeep Singh Bedi, the Commissioner of the Greater Chennai Corporation, when questioned if the current monsoon…

The Bengaluru Ward Samiti Balaga has extended a public invitation to the second Bengaluru Ward Samiti Balaga Samaavesha to be held on October 16th (Sunday) at Government Arts College, next to Civil Court complex, from 10 am. The main objective of the Balaga is to strengthen the ward committees of Bengaluru by working together and collaborating with the BBMP and other civic agencies. BBMP elections are still pending (likely to happen before December 31st per Court orders), but we are glad to report more ward committee meetings are happening now than before our May 28th meeting. However, in many meetings,…

In a previous article, Citizen Matters had traced the anti-encroachment drive by the BBMP in the Mahadevapura zone to clear constructions blocking stormwater drains. Following this, the Outer Ring Road Companies Association (ORRCA) and National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) submitted a proposal that the 17-kilometre stretch of the Outer Ring Road, housing tech parks and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) be declared a separate municipal zone. But is such a zone feasible under the current law? In a bid to transform this stretch into a “world technology corridor”, the proposal seeks a committee to be set up to…

Chennai’s swirling mass of two-wheelers and cars could technically make the Greater Chennai Corporation a wealthy civic body through parking fees, but the current realisation of revenues is only of the order of Rs.1.2 lakh a day, going up from a low Rs.80,000 after parking lots were “improved.” The GCC plans to double the number of street parking sites to 88 locations and provide 12,000 spaces.As of April 2021, there were 9.99 lakh cars and 49 lakh two-wheelers registered in the State capital as per official data. For Tamil Nadu as a whole, the vehicle population grew sharply since 2001,…

Most of us would not know who the Mayor of Bengaluru is. However, the name of the chief commissioner of the municipal corporation would probably be familiar to a few. This complete failure to recognise and identify the mayors of our cities is symptomatic of a deep malaise: the relative unimportance of the political executive in the running of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). One way to be aware of issues of impropriety and poor performance in local government bodies and departments is to track the audit reports from agencies like the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). This article…

Are you a Chennaite who has been to Marina beach since your childhood? Does the sight of the sea hold many happy memories for you? But how many of us know that Marina beach also has a fraught past, which counts as part of its history a police gun firing against fisherfolk who protested against beach beautification? For many youngsters of this generation, the Jallikattu protests were the first time they saw a very different image of the beach - one as a site of protest. But that's not the only point of contention that has seen protests. Over the…

Within the narrow lanes of Thubarahalli, garbage dumps on one side and tin shacks on the other, a thumping noise is heard. Two trucks make their way into this neighbourhood. About 30 volunteers in yellow shirts, ‘India’ written on them, follow the trucks in cars and vans. After the trucks are parked, people quickly start assembling near the  vehicles. They stand in lines and spots demarcated by the volunteers for better organisation. The trucks have brought packaged food items, which is some relief for the families whose lives have been disrupted by the floods. One by one, queues of people start…

Uma Anandan made the news for her controversial statement in support of Nathuram Godse in the run-up to the local body polls. She was elected from Ward 134 and is the lone councillor from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Chennai. Her foray into politics has roots in early childhood, with her father being a member of the Indian National Congress (INC)."I remember the times of Indira Gandhi and the issues such as corruption and autocracy that plagued the INC being discussed in the extended family. There was a slowly eroding value to the party that became apparent to me",…

“It was 12:05 in the night. Some people were awake, some were asleep,” says Rafiq Shaikh, recounting the landslide that struck Kurar Village in Malad on July 2nd, 2019, killing 32 of his neighbours and washing all their houses away. “It was raining heavily and water had entered our house, so we were awake. Perhaps that’s the only reason we made it out alive,” he says. The retaining wall of the Malad Hill water reservoir, towering over their houses in Pimpri Pada and Ambedkar Nagar in Kurar Village, collapsed under the pressure of 300 mm of continuous rainfall. It was like a…

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Reports are a compilation of financial audits, compliance audits, and performance audits of the central government and state governments. The Indian Audit & Accounts (IA& AD), headed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, audits almost all branches of Government at every level. The reports offer insights on the nuanced workings of governance. Citizen Matters series on Understanding Public Project Audits, curated by experts from the CAG, tells us how these reports can be leveraged by citizens to hold their local governments accountable. For instance, when the office of Accountant General (Audit II) conducted…