BENGALURU: While Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), which was conceptualised to bring governance closer to citizens and address grievances effectively, turns a year old on Wednesday (September 2), the hardships faced by citizens – be it bad roads, lack of footpaths, garbage menace, or a simple task like getting documents without a hassle by visiting corporation offices – appear unchanged.
Let alone serving the citizens, it seems the five corporations created under the GBA are facing several administrative issues. The staffing issue remains a major concern, as the government objected to GBA’s request for 6,500 staff, including officers under A, B, C and D categories, due to which the availability of engineers to attend to complaints on garbage management, potholes, setback violations, unauthorised buildings and others remain unsolved and keep resurfacing.
Activists have termed the formation of GBA itself unconstitutional, and say the very idea of splitting the municipality was to delay the election and continue with MLAs’ rule over wards through officials. But the government claims that elections to the five corporations will “surely happen”.
Greater Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda told TNIE that GBA has created a framework for coordination among city corporations and enabled a shift towards more proactive and long-term governance. The minister acknowledged that the administration’s performance had been impacted by multiple surveys and exercises conducted back-to-back during the transition. Over the next three months, GBA will prioritise repairing 2,500km of roads and improving garbage management.
Admitting that staffing is a major issue, he said, “Now we need to focus on capacity building, training and upgrading the skills of civic staff to understand and run the city. The TM Vijay Bhaskar-led committee is examining staffing issues. Based on recommendations, steps will be taken,” he said, adding that elections to local bodies will happen and the government would move forward with the process.
However, civic activists and opponents say the GBA formation exercise has been an expensive and unnecessary drain on the city’s time and resources. Sandeep Anirudhan, convener, Citizens’ Agenda for Bengaluru, said that apart from the constitutionality of the decision, which is being challenged by at least 4 PILs in the High Court, the rush with which the transition occurred created so much confusion that most departments have not yet recovered.
“It took months to assign officials and clear up the administrative framework. Then the ward delimitation exercise led to further confusion, which kept administration frozen. Officials were not assigned to wards for months, stalling even day-to-day normal work, leading to institutional paralysis, and civic conditions collapsed in various parts of the city.
To make things worse, the caste survey, Census work and the SIR left the administration nearly dysfunctional. So in terms of administration, there was a near paralysis,” he said, adding that the trend of delaying elections continues as before, and there’s no relief yet on the horizon. It feels like the very reason the GBA was floated was to delay elections, he said.
Ram Prasad, co-founder, Friends Of Lakes, said GBA engineers have wasted citizens’ time by not attending or responding to their issues on time. “The government should transfer the engineers on priority, as they listen to and follow what MLAs say. New engineers with good skill sets should be appointed in GBA.”
GBA Chief Commissioner M Maheshwar Rao, however, defends the creation of the 5-city corporation, saying it has improved administrative efficiency and enabled faster decision-making. “While the government has cleared recruitment to address staffing issues, we can appoint field-level engineers according to the Cadre and Recruitment rules.
On infrastructure, corporations have earmarked funds for lake development, blue-green infrastructure, sustainability and livable-city initiatives, while B-Smile is receiving substantial State funding. The focus will be on completing white-topping projects and starting elevated corridors, possibly by the end of the month. The GBA is also pursuing completion of long-pending projects, including Wind Tunnel flyover, Hope Farm and Kundalahalli flyover with KRDCL.”