Governance

BBMP has started accepting payments for 2010-11 BBMP property tax, at BBMP Help centres and Bangalore One centres; one can also obtain the forms there. Payment has to be by cheque or DD in the name of the Commissioner, BBMP. ONLINE PAYMENTSOnline payment of property tax can be done at here. BBMP allows you to pay online for the year 2009-10, if 2008-09 details are available online You can pay online for 2010-11, if 2008-09 and 2009-10 details are available online. If your property details have not been uploaded, however you have paid and have the receipts, you will have…

It has been two months since Bengaluru witnessed the fire at Carlton towers. Nine lives were lost. Then came the fire at Gold towers on Residency Road and another in a godown in Peenya. Just four months into 2010 and the fire department has attended to over 900 fire-related calls.All this and there is still no system in place to periodically check for fire safety violations in high-rise buildings in the city. While officials of the Karnataka State Fire and Emergency Services (KSFES) are toothless as they do not have powers to reinspect Bengaluru's buildings after issuing the Occupancy Certificate,…

Malavalli Chikkanna Charities (MCC), a trust that donated its land in Sheshadripuram to the Karnataka Government for construction of a dispensary is reclaiming it, as the unit has been converted into a storeroom. The dispensary was built in 1957 by the health department on a land spread across 3,000 square feet. There were two doctors along with four other staff for attending patients. It was converted to a medicine storeroom around eight years back. From some years now, the trust has been asking the health department to hand over the dispensary to it since it was converted into a store…

IT has been announced recently for the collection of tax for the year 2010-11 with a rebate of 5% only upto 30th April 2010.This period being the bottleneck of the year, where previous years dues of loan, interest etc would have been paid by 31st March. The burden of children education, holiday expenses ( either you have to move out or relatives move in), the current cost of essentials - food and vegetables, etc. which are unavoidable to be postponed and has to be met.In many cases, contributions to the recently held elections have also been met by many indirectly,…

He refers to himself as a whistle-blower. At 70, his concern is for social justice "especially when local bodies are perpetrators". Meet S Vasudeva, a practicing advocate in the Karnataka High Court, who has filed a number of public interest litigations (PIL) on various issues concerning Bengaluru. 70-year-old S Vasudeva is an advocate with the Karnataka High Court. He has filed over 70 PILs in the city. Pic courtesy: S Vasudeva "Government is meant for welfare of people. If they fail to provide basic neccessities, then who will?", he asks passionately. It is because of this that he filed a…

According to a response given by BBMP to a Citizen Matters RTI application of 2009, four BBMP toilets are shown as having been approved for construction in JP Nagar way back in 2006-7. They are mentioned in the BBMP ward works list.At the cost of Rs 6.80 lakh per toilet, Rs 27.2 lakhs is the total cost for building all four. (A copy of the work order list is with Citizen Matters). In late March 2010, on a check by Citizen Matters, three of these toilets are missing (not constructed at the locations at all) and one is built and…

The electoral rolls of Bengaluru have now become a point of conflict with evidence showing they are in a mess. And both in the recent BBMP elections and last year's Parliamentary elections, Bangalore recorded a dismal 45 per cent voter 'turnout'.Not far from here, in the metropolitan city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, a whopping 63 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Of the 32 lakh voters in the city, around 20 lakh citizens had gone out and voted. Whereas in Bangalore, of the 62 lakh voters, only about 27.5 lakh cast their vote in…

It was a short-lived campaign for the BBMP elections with little sound except for the occasional auto rickshaw blaring loud music and unintelligible squawks alternately. There were fortuitously none of the usual cut-outs, banners or buntings which end up ultimately as so much garbage. The only signs which indicated that a campaign was on, were the colourful pamphlets strewn on the roadside, muddied by the footprints of passers-by.After all the hype and excitement drummed up by the media, the State Election Commission says that only about 44 per cent of Bengalureans voted. But given that the electoral rolls are such…

With the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council elections having concluded, the city is all set to see the city council functioning after a gap of three years. But first, for the council itself to hold its first meeting, the state government's Urban Development department must issue a notification to conduct elections to the standing committees and for the posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor. Within 30 days of the notification, the first meeting has to be held.According to Additional Council Secretary Mario Pires, the functioning of the BBMP Council is as per rules mentioned in the Karnataka Municipal Corporations…

“Whatever we are doing today is adding to the bank balance. One day you can draw from it”, consoled Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, founder, Lok Satta party and sitting MLA in the Andhra Pradesh state assembly. Addressing his party colleagues, well-wishers and supporters in Bangalore, Narayan asked them to not be disillusioned by the outcome of the BBMP election results. “I salute your courage”, he added.In the recently concluded city council elections, Lok Satta put up five candidates across five wards. Contesting in an election in the state and the city for the very first time, the party did not win…