Governance

One of the many kebab shops in Zakir Nagar market in the Okhla area is owned by Rehman Alam. The shop has been passed on to him by his ancestors and is famous for its variety and flavour of kebabs. He says, "The business we currently have here is thriving. It is all because of our traditional recipe, which includes roasting the kebabs on coal." However, he is uncertain how events will unfold once coal usage is banned. "We may lose our specialty and customers who come to us regularly. I am worried our ancestral business might be affected," he…

"At midnight on August 30th, we woke up to thigh-high water flooding our homes," recalls Bheemesh, a resident of an informal settlement located in Tigalarpalya, adjacent to Brookefield's BEML Layout. "We rushed outside, barely having had the time to collect our things. When we came out, we found out that the entire settlement had been submerged". The last few weeks have been difficult for citizens across various regions in the city. Several bouts of heavy rainfall has inundated roads and flooded residential layouts. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said this was Bengaluru's second wettest August with 369.9mm of rainfall. The…

A major source of tax revenue for states is Stamps, or Stamp Duty and Registration Fee. Karnataka, for instance, collected Rs 10,576 crore in Stamps and Registration Fee in 2020-21, which amounts to 11% of the state’s tax revenue, as per the State Finances Audit Report for the year ending March 2021 Stamp Duty is a tax payable on legal documents/instruments that function as evidence of the transaction that has taken place. It could be: Fixed (adoption deed, divorce etc.) orAd-valorem i.e, a proportion of the Market Value (MV). MV is defined in the Karnataka Stamp (KS) Act, 1957, as…

An idea first introduced by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 2018 is now bearing fruit. The Society for Mumbai Incubation Lab to Entrepreneurship (SMILE) Council was announced as the BMC's business incubation centre, inviting start-ups and entrepreneurs with unique ideas to Mumbai's problems.  Four years on, the SMILE council has resulted in four innovative medical technology products about to begin use in BMC hospitals. Three others are in the pipeline, the latest being four mini-sewage treatment plants (STP) for slum clusters along the coast, whose usual outlet into the sea has been blocked by the Coastal Road Project. Decentralised and environment-friendly,…

Parithi ElamSurithi is the son of six-time MLA of Egmore Parithi Elamvazhuthi. While his late father fell out with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) after an association spanning three decades, Parithi ElamSurithi's loyalties continued to rest with the party. He has been active as part of the DMK Youth Wing since 2009, holding various posts prior to his election as Councillor of Ward 99. Despite being a first-time Councillor, he says his experience on the field in the past decade has held him in good stead. "Members of my party, right from the Chief Minister, are my inspiration for the…

The Karnataka government's Akrama Sakrama scheme to regularise illegal construction has been opposed by much of Bengaluru's civil society over the years. They had taken the issue to court and got a stay on the same. Even as it looks like the state government is planning to revive the scheme, most civic groups are keen on not letting violators go scot-free. The history of BDA's controversial scheme - Akrama Sakrama As illegal construction in the city became rampant and successive governments and BDA came under increasing criticism for failing to curb this, the Karnataka government announced the Akrama Sakrama scheme…

In 2017, the Gambhir Committee's National Urban Livelihood Mission Shelter Inspection Report submitted to the Supreme Court observed that homeless shelters in the country were in a dismal condition. (The committee was comprised of three members and headed by Justice (retd) Kailash Gambhir.) Many states did not comply with the guidelines of the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM).  Five years later, the homeless are even worse off due to the pandemic, loss of livelihoods and unusual weather events triggered by climate change. The NULM is now aiming to provide, in a phased manner, permanent shelters to the urban homeless under…

Much before the Right to Information (RTI) Act was passed by parliament in 2005, Karnataka had a pioneering sunshine law. The Karnataka Right to Information Act, 2000 (KRIA) was passed in December 2000 and notified in 2002. “Before KRIA, the Official Secrets Act, 1923 (OSA) was in place and that was used to deny all information to citizens,” says Kathyayini Chamaraj of Citizens’ Voluntary Initiative for the City (CIVIC), Bengaluru. At the time, Karnataka was one of few states, like Maharashtra and Rajasthan which had enacted their own laws on citizens’ right to information. KRIA was a landmark piece of…

Suganya E served as a Pradesh Congress Committee Member of the Indian National Congress prior to being elected as councillor of Ward 109. Her ties to the party also involve her husband, who has been a member of the party for close to 25 years. She balances home life, with two young children, and her interest in improving the facilities available to the residents of Ward 109. Her decision to contest stemmed from the Ward being earmarked for women. She laid out her plans for the ward on waste management, improvement of roads and combatting drug addiction. Map of Ward…

It has been six years since the launch of the Smart City Mission in 2016. Yet its core idea, of creating a participatory model for urban governance, remains elusive. Especially for the urban poor. If people had hoped for a better managed, inclusive city with sustainable and resilient infrastructure, that hope has been cruelly belied. Plenty of projects under the Smart City mission are underway in many cities. But few have achieved the objectives they set out for themselves. Which raises the question, what does the smart city mission provide for the urban poor? Have their lives changed at all…