Indicating that it is seriously considering an old proposal of splitting the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) into smaller corporations, the state government on Monday reconstituted a committee, which submitted a report on the civic body’s restructuring in 2018.
The three-member committee is expected to focus on reimagining Bengaluru’s governance and administration covering the BBMP and all other parastatal agencies.
The members of the committee are: B S Patil, former chief secretary; Siddaiah, former commissioner of BDA and BBMP; and V Ravichandar, former member of the Bangalore Agenda Task (BATF).
During the first term, the committee had submitted at least 10 reports on various subjects concerning the city between 2015 and 2018; prominent among them was the one to split the BBMP into five corporations.
Monday’s order was reportedly issued on the instructions of Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who met the members of the committee on June 6. DH recently carried an article titled ‘D K Shivakumar dusts off proposal to create five corporations under Bengaluru’.
With a similar objective, the government’s order has empowered the committee to continue with the “exercise of reimagining Bengaluru’s governance and administration” covering the BBMP, Urban Development Department, BDA, BWSSB, BMRDA, DULT, BMLTA, city police, fire services, slum board, etc and corporations like BMTC, Bescom, BMRCL and sub-urban rail.
“Strengthen brand Bengaluru through these actions,” the order says while asking the committee to “ensure deep decentralisation at the ward level, while being consistent with the spirit of the 74th amendment, including the Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) set up.”
The Urban Development Department, which issued the order, has authorised the Special Commissioner (Administration) of the BBMP to extend all support, including office, staff and vehicles.
There was mixed response to the proposal to divide the BBMP in 2015, with some experts citing the failure of a similar exercise undertaken in Delhi. A few also suggested Bengaluru to take a cue from Mumbai, which is running a large corporation without dividing it into smaller entities.
Some urban planners believe creating smaller corporations is of no use as the system is run by the “same set of people”.