As a resident of Bengaluru, did you ever have questions you wanted to ask your corporator? Did you ever wonder about the changes you have seen in your ward in the last five years? With the five-year term of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council having ended on Thursday (September 10), an online event scheduled for Saturday gives citizens the opportunity to ask questions to the corporators who served in the city in the last five years.
Janaagraha, a non-profit organisation, is organising an online event in which members of the BBMP Council who stepped down will be taking part. The event titled 'Namma Nayakaru' (our leaders) will begin at 11 am on Saturday.
Srinivas Alavilli, an activist who works with Janaagraha says that the event is an opportunity for residents to understand how the city works. "More and more people are now working with the system with ward committees or WhatsApp groups or good old phone calls. But even the so-called ‘active citizens’ don't really know what happens behind the scenes – how the budget gets allocated, how projects are prioritised etc. We experience the lack of services or bad quality of them but we don't know why things are the way they are," Srinivas says.
Janaagraha will bring together corporators cutting across party lines and from across the city to discuss their work in the past five years. "It is designed to be a productive, cordial conversation with the elected leaders of the city. When citizens and politicians work together, good things are bound to happen as we've seen time and again. This time, we will focus on Bengaluru governance and what the people that have been part of it, have to say," Srinivas adds.
Presently, senior IAS officer Gaurav Gupta is in charge of administration in Bengaluru city while BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad reports to him until the new group of corporators are elected.
Details of the event can be found here