Bengaluru: One year after the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) came into effect, public infrastructure experts say the city still has no elected council, and that the problems in India’s infotech capital have only compounded and are no closer to being resolved. The rising challenges have cast a cloud of uncertainty over the city and the state government which introduced sweeping structural changes.
The GBA became operational on 2 September last year, splitting the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP, the city’s civic body) into five smaller corporations for efficient service delivery and a decentralised approach to deal with the city’s rising challenges.
Public infrastructure expert Ashwin Mahesh said that the GBA has not been able to move beyond its concept stage. “There is activity without achievement especially since the new Cabinet took over. If you want achievement, then activity has to be aligned with outcomes,” Mahesh told ThePrint. He said that existing infrastructure or resources have not been able to match even the minimum requirements needed for the GBA to be successful although there is a new approach of decentralisation.
Bengaluru, one of India’s largest and richest cities, has been without an elected council since September 2020. Mahesh says that when D.K. Shivakumar was Bengaluru Urban District in-charge Minister (2023-2026), he had asked for more time to conduct the elections since the city was being restructured.
The GBA Chief Commissioner Maheswara Rao said Wednesday that several works had started, but the war in West Asia was adding to delays. “The government had sanctioned enough projects since we had full support from the chief minister and District in-Charge Ministers (Krishna Byre Gowda)—even though we got enough funds—because of the war in Iran we have a bitumen shortage and rates have increased,” Rao told reporters in Bengaluru Wednesday.
‘Outer periphery neglected’
Apart from splitting the erstwhile BBMP into five smaller ones, the number of wards also went up from 198 to 396. “Now it’s been a year since the GBA came into effect, why are the elections still not held? The number of wards was increased from 198 to 396, but the number of ward offices remains largely unchanged,” Mahesh said.
He added that the Shivakumar-led government has asked the Supreme Court for another extension to hold GBA elections; this time they have attributed delays to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
R.K. Mishra, an expert on urban affairs and independent director and technical advisor for Bengaluru Smart Infrastructure Limited (B-Smile) said that the GBA has possibly achieved decentralisation and quicker resolutions due to empowered commissioners. “What has essentially not happened is that the government’s treatment of the GBA has not been very good,” he told ThePrint.
He says that like their predecessors, the incumbent Congress government continues to focus on repeating the process of laying, relaying and beautifying the same roads in core Bengaluru while turning a blind eye to rapidly-expanding localities in the outer periphery of the city.
Since taking charge as Bengaluru In-Charge Minister, Gowda has introduced popular campaigns like clearing out pavements, cleaning empty plots of land and freedom from garbage, but experts say he has not been able to institutionalise any significant change.
On Sunday, thousands of people gathered at Bengaluru’s Lalbagh to protest against the Shivakumar-led government’s decision to divert 5 per cent of park lands for infrastructure, attempting to circumvent hurdles for the chief minister’s pet ‘Tunnel Road’ project.
There has been resistance to even the new parking policy proposed by the government from its own ministers, indicating that the blocks are is coming from outside as well as inside the administration. The chief minister has decided to hold the related Bill.
‘Empty treasury’
Much of Karnataka’s financial resources have been tied up to the Congress government’s flagship guarantee schemes, leaving little for works that can help improve the conditions of residents in its biggest cities. There have also been reports of Congress MLAs themselves expressing concern over a lack of funds for development, one legislator even demanding that industry captains give CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) grants for road betterment.
The brickbats have landed at Shivakumar’s door since he was the one who championed the GBA when he was Bengaluru Urban District in-charge minister.
“The first 6 months of the year were wasted on staff, offices, and file allocation! The rest of the time is spent on budget action plans and tender processes! So when will the people of Bengaluru get infrastructure?” R. Ashoka, the leader of the Opposition, said Wednesday in a social media post.
He added that the special infrastructure capital support scheme of Rs 2,199.99 crore that was supposed to be released from the state government remains an unfulfilled promise.
“You have transferred all the huge development works to the ‘Bangalore Smart Infrastructure Limited’ (B-SMILE) company, reducing the corporations to the level of mere civil servants who remove garbage and close potholes! Not a single penny has been given for the development of parks and lakes,” he added.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)