Bengaluru’s continuing misery

Bengaluru, a city known by many names, including the garden city, the city of lakes, and the Silicon Valley of India, bears another less flattering tag: that of being the least liveable city. As the city battles with increasing population and unregulated expansion, two significant factors contributing to the city’s dysfunction are the absence of a functioning city council and a lack of implementation of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Act (BBMP Act) that governs Bengaluru. Given its sheer size—it is approximately 12 times bigger than the second largest city in the state and a corporation ranked the fourth largest in the country—these deficiencies reflect a pitiable state of affairs.

The terms of the councillors who were elected in 2015 ended in 2020, and since then, the state government has run the corporation through bureaucrats. The concern lies in Bengaluru’s lack of elected representatives—the first point of contact for citizens—at the grassroots level, despite boasting the highest number of wards among all urban areas in Karnataka. This absence of the third tier of government violates the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, which facilitates decentralisation and envisages empowered municipalities for effective self-governance.

Elected officials are accountable to citizens, whereas state-appointed bureaucrats, who are merely state representatives, do not have much at stake, diminishing their responsibility. A city devoid of a mayor-council-councillor governance framework leaves citizens unrepresented in local governance.

In response to the administrative and structural inadequacies of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976 (KMC Act) to govern Bengaluru effectively, the government enacted the BBMP Act in 2020, aiming to enhance decentralisation and public participation at various levels of municipal governance. However, two years after its enactment, the implementation of
the BBMP Act continues to face challenges.

Two distinct features of the Act that facilitate decentralisation and enable conversations on important issues between various agencies need to be acknowledged here: the Constituency Consultative Committee (CCC) and the Zonal Committee, both of which are absent in the KMC Act.

The CCC in the BBMP Act supports the zonal committee in performing its functions, reviewing its performance, and providing suggestions on wards that need improvement. On the other hand, the zonal committee has the responsibility to supervise the implementation of any project of the Corporation that cuts across the boundaries of multiple wards. The zonal committee envisions integration across the corporation and multiple government parastatal agencies.

While the law is in place, its implementation lacks teeth. In fact, the Karnataka High Court only recently, in June 2023, directed the state government to constitute the Heritage Conservation Committee, Metropolitan Planning Committee, and Grievance Redressal Authority as stipulated in the BBMP Act to facilitate proper administration of the city.

The lack of transparency and accountability is further exacerbated by the fact that the budget is now directly controlled by the state government owing to the absence of the third tier of governance. The BBMP presented its budget in the absence of a council for the third consecutive year. While BBMP’s budget speaks for decentralisation and division of responsibilities, with neither the Act implemented nor the presence of councillors, city governance seems like a far-off dream.

The government has reconstituted the committee that submitted the report on restructuring BBMP in 2018, indicating that it is re-considering splitting BBMP into smaller bodies to improve administrative efficiency. Is breaking the BBMP into smaller municipal structures the only solution to the problem, or would it further magnify the existing concerns? The crucial challenges that BBMP faces today are financial accountability and transparent decision-making processes, both of which will continue to persist even after the split. While there is a need to reimagine the city’s governance and administration, this doesn’t necessarily mean there is a need for an overhaul of the entire system. Instead, implementation of existing laws is the way forward.

The elections are touted to be pushed further to 2024, as the Karnataka HC has allowed the new government to hold a fresh exercise for redrawing the boundaries of the BBMP wards. With the council absent and the council elections far away, there will always be question marks on who the citizens can hold accountable for the innumerable woes—an increase in potholes in the city, a lot more encroachments, or just every-day civic issues—garbage, water, and otherwise. It is time for Bengaluru to move away from the popular tag of being called an urban ruin; otherwise, the idea of Brand Bengaluru will only remain a brand on paper.

(The writer is a senior resident fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.)