The two major parties, Congress and BJP, have put out their manifestos. They have made specific promises for Bengaluru. Most of the points are welcome and address issues of governance, administration and solutions to common problems of traffic, roads, garbage, pollution, safety and more.
Two heartwarming promises are drawing up a separate Act for Bengaluru and setting up an alphabet soup, UMTA, also called the Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority. But as they say, the ‘devil is in the details’, and while one needs to see how it plays out, one could hazard a guess on the challenges ahead. The case for a separate act for Bengaluru is apparent. Currently, the Karnataka Municipal Act is common
for Tumkur with a population of three lakh, and Bengaluru with a population of 100 lakh. The complexities of governing a metropolis like Bengaluru with multiple agencies is huge, and needs a separate customized act. Both parties concur, though one fears that what they have in mind is different.
The BBMP Restructuring Committee (disclosure – the author was a member) suggested political and administrative decentralization though multiple corporations, ward level governance and integration at a city-level across agencies through the Greater Bengaluru Authority with a directly elected city mayor in due course.
An alternate view is just undertaking administrative decentralization with more powers to zonal commissioners and staying with the current arrangement. It is to be seen which view finally prevails. My view is that the scale of the problem is so huge and growing that just administrative empowerment will neither work nor suffice. The essence of UMTA is bringing together everything that moves under one ‘czar’ at a city-level, akin to arrangements in Singapore and London. Currently, private vehicles, cab aggregators, buses, suburban rail, Metro rail and roads / footpaths are under different agencies, each designed as territorial silos.
The promise of UMTA is to bring them under one umbrella that has financial budgets, tariff fixation, powers for granting permissions, imposing penalties and providing incentives. Past efforts have resulted in weak institutional arrangements, with no powers to make their writ work. If this is to be successful, it needs to be manned at an additional chief secretary-level reporting to the Bengaluru minister with significant powers. We must wait and watch whether the new powers that be have the stomach for this much-needed reform.
V. Ravichandar
@ravichandar
Author is an urban expert,who calls himself the Patron Saint of Lost Causes