As Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike becomes Greater Bengaluru Authority, the city’s administration is likely to undergo a paradigm change. While GBA envisions a metropolis with world-class infrastructure, the underlying aim is to restructure governance and address challenges such as the creaking civic facilities. The plan is to divide BBMP into three corporations or more and build teams run by commissioners, overseen by a chief commissioner. With Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM D K Shivakumar as chairman and vice-chairman of GBA, it’s clear that the city will get the attention it deserves.
Like other Indian cities, Bengaluru is plagued by traffic bottlenecks, waterlogging and overflowing drains, inefficient waste management, potholed roads and dying lakes. If all these issues are to be addressed, the city needs the GBA, which will have overarching powers over civic, planning and transport authorities. Floods due to heavy showers have exposed Bengaluru’s shortcomings and the need for better governance, At present, Chief Commissioner Maheshwar Rao is handling two heavy-duty portfolios—civic administration and Bengaluru Metro—which is bound to compromise his ability to handle them adequately. All this should change under the GBA.
The focus on Bengaluru is a clear indication that the Congress government wants to project itself as pro-urban and pro-development, while also managing its guarantee schemes. Bengaluru provides a visible canvas for such an image. As Bengaluru Development Minister, Shivakumar is driving the change, into which he hopes to incorporate his pet projects of tunnel roads and a skydeck—which have raised the hackles of urbanists—besides elevated corridors and suburban trains. Shivakumar has been promising uninterrupted electricity, piped water for every house and efficient waste management, for which citizens are already paying new cesses. In the future, the GBA is likely to expand across 1,000 sq km to include peripheral villages, from the present 740 sq km.
While the focus on holistic administration is welcome, there are doubts over whether slicing the city for tighter administration will aid the common citizen or result in more corruption and red tape. There are also fears that citizens will be left out of the decision-making process. Civic activists are not too happy with the top-down system kicking in. Experiments with smaller corporations have failed in a few other cities. So only when the GBA takes shape will we know whether Greater Bengaluru is better than Bruhat Bengaluru.