BENGALURU: Town Hall was packed on Sunday, as citizens conferred the Corporator #1 Namma Samiti Puraskaara (Our Committee Awards) to not one or two, but 51 BBMP corporators in a glitzy event. The corporators were awarded based on the number of ward committee meetings they held from December 2018 to date through an online survey and forms, distributed by Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) volunteers, filled by citizens.
Corporators won awards for conducting the maximum number of ward committee meetings. Citizens like Katyayani Chamaraju of CIVIC, and urban experts like V Ravichander and Dr Ashwin Mahesh and many more conferred the awards.
Justice Santosh Hegde was the chief guest while Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun and BJP leader Padmanabha Reddy were also in attendance. Theatre personality Prakash Belawadi paid a video tribute to late playwright Girish Karnad.
Speaking at the event, Justice Hegde said, “Some people warned me about going to a function that awards politicians, but I see that there are good people in politics and it is our collective responsibility to recognize the good work of politicians.”
Srinivas Alavilli of CfB said, “Today, a brand new chapter of urban local self governance in India has been written. The dream of decentralization is coming true with ward committees finally being functional after 27 years.”
Tree doctor Vijay Nishanth, said, “The awards will help corporators perform even better in future. We need to recognize the ones who are doing great. The next time, we hope to honour all corporators.”
Vishnu Prasad, from Bellandur Development Forum, said, “I congratulate our corporator Asha Suresh for winning the ward. However after elections the ward committee meetings were moved to weekdays from weekend. Many citizens can’t be part of the meetings. I hope they start conducting them on the weekends again.”