BENGALURU: Bengaluru development minister KJ George and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials have disputed several ratings given to the city in Janaagraha’s city-systems report, which ranks Bengaluru last among 23 cities. According to them, the survey findings do not portray the real situation of Bengaluru.
A Janaagraha representative said the low ratings could be because the Act for BBMP’s trifurcation had not been passed yet, and clarified that all data for the survey was procured from public information and RTI replies.
The survey, titled ‘Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems, 2017,’ gave ratings out of 10 on 89 parameters under various categories which claim to reflect the quality of governance. It gave Bengaluru a score of 3 out of 10, with Pune, the highest ranked Indian city on the list, scoring 5.1 (London and New York both scored 8.8).
George said, “The persons who have conducted the survey have not taken any inputs from BBMP authorities or any other officials. I have spoken of this to Swati Ramanathan, co-founder of Jana Group and the CEO of Janaagraha, and they have agreed to re-visit the ratings.”
While the government respected Janaagraha for the work they had done for the city, the people who collected information for the survey were in the wrong, he added.
BBMP commissioner Manjunath Prasad highlighted several parameters on which the city had been ranked low in spite of fulfilling the requirements. He said the city had scored a zero for its credit rating, even though the credit rating agency ICRA had given BBMP a rating of ‘A-minus.’ “We do have a double-entry accounting system, but have scored zero in that regard. We have adhered to budget timelines, but again score zero for this,” he said.
Deputy head, Advocacy and Reforms at Janaagraha, Anil Nair, said several low scores for the city could be because the bill for the BBMP’s trifurcation had its approval pending with the President of India. The survey was more of a reflection of the thoroughness of the acts that mandate municipal corporations, rather than operation of the corporation itself, he said. “Now we are taking a re-look at that Act and may re-score Bengaluru. It is too early to say whether this will improve the score,” he said. Nair added that all the data used for the survey was shared by the government either through RTI or was publicly available.
BBMP commissioner rubbishes survey
Commissioner Manjunath Prasad pointed out two instances where he claimed the ratings were incorrect — on whether the annual accounts of the urban body were mandated to be audited by an external agency, and whether they were available in the public domain. “The city scored a zero on both counts, despite fulfilling the requirements.”
Findings far from reality?