The BBMP’s ward delimitation exercise to increase their numbers from 198 to 243 has received more brickbats than bouquets.
Residents are clearly unhappy over the way well-established residential areas have been ripped up and how ward offices have now increased in distance after delimitation.
In most cases, delimited wards are shapeless with the addition of tiny pockets that could easily have been part of the neighbouring wards. New wards such as HSR Layout, Iblur, Thanisandra and Rupena Agrahara are also in a linear shape, indicating that politicians, especially MLAs, had a big say in the process.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has insisted that Census 2011 has been the basis of the delimitation exercise, but it has increasingly become apparent that voting booths have played a key part in carving out new wards.
Obvious is also the fact that wards of some constituencies have an average population of 39,000, while the average is less than 31,000 per ward in other constituencies.
Balaji Layout resident V K Srivatsa is hoping that the erstwhile Hemmigepura ward, now called Thalaghattapura, is bifurcated.
“The ward remains one of the biggest (27 sq km), comprising no less than 2 lakh voters. By retaining the size, funds may not be adequate to fix the basic infrastructure,” he said.
In a departure from standard practice, railway lines, roads and major buildings were not marked as boundaries of the new wards. For instance, Mysuru Road passes through Thalaghattapura ward, dividing it by half.
Kasturinagar resident Venugopal Rai was upset that the BDA-formed layout has been bifurcated.
“While part of our layout has been brought under the Lal Bahadur Nagar ward, another portion is part of CV Raman Nagar. What’s worrying is that residents do not have proper access to CV Raman Nagar. Ideally, the entire layout could have been part of one ward,” he said.
Wards such as Bande mutt (Yeshwantpur assembly constituency), Bellandur, CV Raman Nagar, Jayamahal, Sampangiram Nagar, Vijayanagar, Suddaguntepalya, Kalena Agrahara, Kengeri Upanagara, Kanneshwara Rama, Jnanabharathi, V Nagenahalli, Hennur and Kadugodi are shapeless and without reasoning.
HSR Layout resident Kavitha Reddy said a majority of areas clubbed to form a ward fall outside HSR Layout. “Both ends of the delimited ward are at least 6 km apart. The entire layout comprises seven sectors, but they have been further split into multiple wards, creating confusion,” she said.
On the brighter side, at least 40 new wards have now been added by redrawing existing boundaries in the city outskirts, which will infuse funds to the areas that continue to have village-like infrastructure though they were brought under the city administration over a decade ago.