Bengaluru: The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka Tuesday tabled a bill, which proposes to divide the state’s capital, Bengaluru, into smaller administrative zones for “effective governance”, and to “streamline political accountability” and “improve the quality of life”.
Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, who holds charge of the Bengaluru City Development portfolio in the Karnataka Cabinet, tabled The Greater Bengaluru Governance Bill, 2024, in the ongoing assembly session.
The 114-page bill proposes to establish as many as 10 smaller city corporations in the Greater Bengaluru Area with the rationale that previous attempts to govern the city were “inadequate and did not institute any mechanisms to address the fragmentation of governance in the city due to the multiplicity of civic agencies and the lack of coordination between them”.
In its statement of objectives, the bill says that it aims is to “integrate and streamline political accountability of all public authorities delivering services in the Greater Bengaluru Area”.
After introducing the bill, Shivakumar said that all key stakeholders in the city would be consulted. “Bengaluru belongs to everyone. We will factor in the opinions and suggestions of all leaders and stakeholders before finalising the bill,” he said.
“I may be born in a village, but I have been living in Bengaluru since the age of five. I may be representing another constituency, but I care for Bengaluru. Officials had recommended the London model of governance, but I did not agree. We can’t change the model of governance completely, hence we are looking at incremental changes,” he told the House.
The tabling of the bill saw resistance from the Opposition as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs, including R. Ashoka, C.N. Ashwath Narayan and Suresh Kumar, criticised it.
Shivakumar said, “I am tabling this bill for discussion, and I don’t expect you to approve it as is. Bengaluru has been growing rapidly and it requires changes. Let’s discuss what is needed and what is not.”
However, according to former councillors and urban planners, the new bill will lead to more economic inequality among the proposed city corporations, as IT corridors will end up being concentrated only in a few, while others will remain underdeveloped due to more low-income neighbourhoods.
Further, the bill does not specify the area it covers, which may lead to the confusion of arbitrary boundaries and more disputes. There is also ambiguity on the actual number of smaller corporations that will fall under the Greater Bengaluru Area (GBA).
Previous governments, led by both BJP and Congress, have presented similar bills in the past to increase the number of wards from the existing figure of 198, among other proposed reforms. But there has been little change on ground or in terms of policy.
“The bill has been brought to further delay the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) elections, hike up property prices in the outskirts as several politicians and officials have bought large tracts of land there,” former BJP corporator N.R. Ramesh told ThePrint.
The Bengaluru city corporation has been operating without an elected council since September 2020.
State governments across India have attempted similar measures in the past to cope with rising urban migration. Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dixit had trifurcated the national capital in 2011 for administrative purposes, but in 2022, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government through legislation merged the three civic bodies again.
Shivakumar has called for a meeting of all Bengaluru MLAs and other elected representatives of the city on 27 July for further deliberations.
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What the bill proposes
Though the bill proposed that the number of city corporations in the GBA “shall not exceed ten”, people aware of the developments say that it is likely to be split into five administrative zones.
The bill specifies that the area falling under each of the city corporations will have a population of no more than 10 lakh, density of 5,000 people per square km, while revenue generated by the local unit will not be less than Rs 300 crore per annum.
Each corporation shall have no more than 200 and not less than 50 wards.
But ambiguity over the total area the bill proposes to cover fuels further confusion as the act does not specify ‘local areas’.
The GBA will have a three-tier system with city corporations and ward committees making up the second and third tiers, respectively, according to the proposal.
The Authority will be headed by the Chief Minister, with Bengaluru Development, and Home and Urban Development ministers, among its 21 members.
The bill also proposes 10 percent of councillors to be nominated by the state government. These will include people “having special knowledge and experience in municipal administration or matters relating to health, town planning or education”, or “social workers”. But these nominees will not have the right to vote.
The city corporation can also collect a wide variety of taxes, cesses and other duties. This may contribute to less uniformity for residents living in the same city, but under different administrative rules.
The bill also proposes an increase in tenure of the mayor and deputy mayor from one to five years.
‘Attempt to divide Kempe Gowda’s Bengaluru’
The BJP maintains that if the city is divided, it will lead to more non-Kannadiga mayors as there are localities, like Mahadevapura, among others, that have more migrant population. “The city was established by Kempe Gowda and has expanded into a global city. Now the Siddaramaiah-led government is trying to break his legacy and insult Vokkaligas,” Ramesh said.
BBMP, the city’s civic body, came into existence in 2007, when the Karnataka government decided to expand the total area of the city from around 300 square km to nearly 800 square km. A total of 110 villages on the outer periphery of the city then became part of Bengaluru.
This led to higher revenues for the administration, but poorer quality of roads and civic amenities for the newly-included areas — a problem which exists even today, despite some of these areas housing technology corridors and Fortune 500 companies.
“The Congress government does not understand governance. They cannot handle even dengue, chikungunya and zika outbreaks, or the education system or governance. They have completely destroyed the economy and the entire system. All such experiments have failed in Delhi and other places. They want a united Bengaluru, but you can see the pathetic condition of the city,” Ashwath Narayan, BJP MLA and former deputy CM, told reporters Tuesday.
The overall quality of life in Bengaluru has consistently deteriorated over time. With the city contributing nearly half of Karnataka’s gross state domestic product and accounting for over half of all the investments coming into Karnataka, the city attracts migrants, both white and blue collar, from across India and the world, adding to the congestion.
Encroachments of water bodies, illegal constructions and excessive concretisation, erosion of green cover, high levels of pollution, crumbling infrastructure are other major issues.
The new bill proposes to institute a “decentralised, participative, efficient and equitable governance framework for Bengaluru”.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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