An analysis done by the non-governmental organisation Janaagraha reveals that the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) budget, presented recently, has allocated funds to the already developed wards and neglected those that need attention.
Last month, Mayor D Venkatesh Murthy had presented the BBMP budget of Rs 8,520 crore. Srikanth Vishwanathan, the coordinator of Janaagraha, said of the total funds, Rs 647 crore has been allocated for ward-wise works. This means, on an average, each ward should have got Rs 3.3 crore.
Referring to the Ward Quality Score Survey conducted by the Janagraaha, Srikanth said they had identified 10 wards from the newly-added areas as bottom wards that need more attention. “Some of the wards have been allocated as less as `30 lakh. On the other hand, the top wards got much more funds than the average allocation. As many as 133 wards of 198 have been allocated funds less than the average,” he said.
On party-wise budgetary allocation, Srikanth said the wards represented by the BJP councillors got more funds than other wards. According to the analysis, the average allocation for BJP councillors wards is Rs 4 crore while those represented by the Congress and the JD(S) is Rs 2.3 crore each. On gender discrimination, Srikanth said there are 71 women councillors and Rs 134 crore has been allocated to their wards. Meanwhile, Rs 513 crore was allocated to the 127 wards headed by male councillors.
Lion’s Share
Kathriguppe ward in Basavanagudi constituency represented by Mayor D Venkatesh Murthy got the highest allocation of Rs 31 crore.