The proposal to bifurcate Bangalore was discussed in the Council meeting of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike
(BBMP) on 29th July, 2013 while discussing the provisions in the Budget 2013-14. It was argued that opinion of the elected representatives should be considered on the
Bifurcation of Bangalore. Various points on amalgamation / bifurcation made
since the creation of the local body during the year
1862 is discussed in this article.
The first local body for Bangalore was created by the British on 27-3-1862 to
maintain civic services, and to develop the City. Its jurisdiction was not
including the Cantonment area existing on the north of the municipal area. The
Cantonment area was serving the civic needs of the Defense Department of the British as well as their administrative establishments. Later, a Cantonment
Board was established on
1-8-1862 to govern the Cantonment area. Municipal area and the Cantonment
area were on either side of the Cubbon Park. The Cantonment area had wide roads some of which like; Cubbon Road, M.G. Road, Queens Road, etc are
serving the present day increased traffic. The infrastructure in the Cantonment
was with good public buildings, bungalows , parks and playgrounds, ornamental street lighting, avenues, etc serving the citizens who were
mostly well-to-do migrated from other states like; Madras and Hyderabad serving the British
establishments, and the service population. The City area, with local population, had narrow roads and small and medium sized houses. The two local body areas had their own
markets, and civic amenities. They developed extensions also to meet the demands for residential sites. Basavanagudi and
Malleswaram extensions were formed in
the City area. Frazer Town and Richards Town, etc. were formed in the Cantonment area. These two local bodies in Bangalore continued till 8-4-1949 when the Bangalore City Municipal Corporation (BMP) was
constituted under a separate act called
‘the City of Bangalore Municipal Corporation Act, 1949’. The City and
Cantonment areas were amalgamated in the City Corporation after the enactment of this Act. The intention
of amalgamation was to merge the two
parts of the City artificially created by the British in spite of
contiguous built up area of the city and
dependant on each other for urban functions. The idea was also to avoid
co-ordination problems in
Infrastructure maintenance and development. Mayo Hall which served as
the office of the Cantonment Board accommodated some branch offices of the City Corporation . Later, notified
areas like; H.A.L.Notified Area, I.T.I. Notified Area, etc were constituted for proper maintenance
of those areas covered by village panchayats. The City functioned well
under the BMP .
Only after establishment
of I.T.P.L. at White Field and attraction of I.T. & I.T.E.S. sector in Bangalore, migration of people for employment and other facilities from other parts of the State as well as other states, enabled rapid growth of the City. Bangalore
Development Authority’s (BDA) inability to form extensions to meet the demands of the rapidly growing City due to
land acquisition problems, resulted in urban sprawl all round the City with un-authorised developments without urban services .
To maintain and improve urban services, and control the developments in the areas all round the city, Government constituted seven city municipal councils namely;
Rajarajeshwarinagra, Dasarahalli, Bommanahalli, K.R.puram, Mahadevapura ,Byatarayanapura,
and Yelahanka, and one town municipal council at Kengeri . Population
of the City at that time was about
7.5 to
8.0 million.
The purpose of
forming the city and town municipal councils was not served as the as the
municipalities functioned only like bigger panchayats. These local bodies were according illegal sanctions for developments,
not following provisions of Bangalore Master Plan, not controlling
unauthorized developments, collusion of officials with promoters of developments, not taking up infrastructure necessary, bad maintenance of infrastructure,
etc. The chief executive officers of these municipalities were only of the
level of assistant commissioners. Government
after observing illegal sanctions by these local bodies withdrew their power of sanction of high rise buildings and entrusted that power to BDA. The areas all round the City with
unauthorized developments in the
municipal areas were found to create problems for future extension of
the City to continue road network proposed in the Master Plan, and extension of utilities and services.
In the year 2007, Government decided to amalgamate all these
local bodies with the Bangalore City Corporation. The Bangalore Bruhat Mahanagar Palike ( BBMP) was constituted by including the
areas in seven city municipal councils,
one town municipal council, and 111
village panchayat areas. The municipal area was extended from 226 sq. kms to 825
sq.kms with 197 wards. it may be noted that this is the second amalgamation of local bodies in Bangalore City. The first
amalgamation was in 1949 when the City
Municipal and Cantonment areas were amalgamated. The city as the favoured location for investment, is undergoing
rapid development. According to the
Census,2011 , population of Bangalore City was 95.88 lakh or 95.88 million. At
present( 2013), the population is about
10.00 million. According to the present trend of growth, the City will have 13
million population by 2021.
The civic problems in Bangalore are becoming bad to
serious. Garden City has become a Garbage
City. One may call it as Pot Hole City, and other names. The problems faced in
Bangalore are the following:
· Shortage of River Cauvery water for water
supply even to the present population.
· Garbage every where.
· Serious traffic congestion, traffic
accidents, and longer journey time wasting commuters’ time.
· Serious parking problem.
· Pot holes and road cuttings every where
affecting movement of vehicles.
· Serious vehicular pollution due to movement
of about 4.5 million vehicles in the City.
· Sewage flow in major storm water drains, pollution
of lakes, and overflowing manholes in older localities like Shivajinagar.
· Over exploited underground
water in Bangalore Urban District requiring digging of bore wells to depths of
600 to 800 feet.
· Too many unauthorized sub-standard developments all round the City
with mixed land uses affecting planned extension of the City to continue net
work of roads, and utilities and services.
· New parks and play grounds are not formed ,
and existing ones are encroached.
· Too many thefts, chain snatching, and
murders.
· Shortage of funds, etc.
Citizens are suffering in
Bangalore with bad living conditions. Why we are not maintaining the City like the large cities in foreign
countries is not understood. There are large cities like Mumbai and Ahmedabad
in India which are better managed. Our leaders and officials visit foreign countries but are not
able to improve governance in Bangalore for a better urban situation.
The implications of
bifurcation of Bangalore are the following :
o
It is not practically possible to bifurcate
the city which has contiguous built
up area, inter-dependant on common
infrastructure , and civic amenities
o
If bifurcation is done, one authority will blame the other authority for
civic problems in common areas.
o Unnecessary increase in staff strength will
be necessary to manage two separate authorities
o
Problem to settle sharing of cost of common
infrastructure projects.
o
Problems for co-ordination between the two authorities.
The urban situation will
therefore not improve by Bifurcation of Bangalore.
1. Bifurcation of Bangalore need not be tried again as
bifurcated parts of the City were amalgamated twice; the first time when the City Corporation was
formed in 1949, and the second time when seven city municipal councils and one town municipal council were amalgamated
in the year 2007 to form the BBMP. The grounds for amalgamation were lack of
co-ordination among different local bodies, developments all round not according to comprehensive development, and
lack of control on developments by the
different units.
2. Justification for taking up projects is to be verified whether it will provide public benefit, by
consulting experts and the citizens organizations.
3. Only efficient officials be entrusted to carry out
the projects within the target date , which should be reviewed periodically.
4. Economy in expenditure to followed with only
necessary staff.
5. Transparency observed in entrustment of projects to established
firms.
6. Responsibility to be fixed on officials for
compulsory supervision of works and report personal opinion before incurring
expenditure on projects.
7. Finances of BBMP should be improved by proper
collection of revenue and avoiding
wasteful expenditure.
8. Development control to be ensured by strictlyenforcing zoning regulations andbuilding byelaws. Officials colluding with builders/ property owners are to be
punished.
Let not Government take a
hasty decision to bifurcate the City, but organize the structure of BBMP for
effective governance.
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