BENGALURU:With one of the five-member scrutiny committee set up by the state government resigning recently to contest the assembly elections, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) could not go ahead and re-scrutinise the 13,067 objections and suggestions from the public for the draft of its Revised Master Plan (RMP) 2031. The scrutiny can only be done jointly.
Former BBMP and BDA Commissioner Siddaiah had quit the committee in order to contest polls from Sakleshpur constituency on a Congress ticket. He polled 37,002 votes and came third in Sakleshpur trailing both the JD (S) and the BJP.
The RMP 2031 is meant to serve as a blueprint to plan the city for the next 15 years. It was supposed to be ready by March 2017. However, due to exhaustive analysis carried out, the draft copy was released only by November last year. Former chief secretary BS Patil was supposed to head the committee that includes the secretary of the Town Planning Department L Shashikumar, BDA Commissioner Rakesh Singh, urban expert R K Mishra and Siddaiah.
A top BDA source said, "We are yet to hear from the government whether the existing four-member team can go ahead with the scrutiny. Otherwise, we need to wait until a new government assumes office and posts another official to replace him." The team was constituted by the previous government in March this year following bribery allegations against the then ruling party from the opposition.
One round of scrutiny of all objections to RMP 2031 had already been completed by a team comprising of BBMP Projects Special Commissioner, Additional Director of BDA, Director of Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA), Director of Town Planning and Joint Director of the Master Plan. They had scrutinised each of the objections and submitted a report to BMRDA. It was later that the new committee was set up.
The government had also decided to give the public one more month to file their objections and issued directions to the BDA to do the same. "However, since the communication from it was received on the same day that elections were declared (March 28) and the model code of conduct came into effect, the BDA could not act on it. We will now do so as soon as the model code is no longer in place," the source added.
The delayed deadline BDA planned for the final report was supposed to be June 2018. But even that looks impossible right now and no one at BDA is able to specify a deadline for RMP 2031.