With Governor Vajubhai Vala giving his assent to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Act 2020 and the same being published on Monday, Bengaluru finally has a new law governing the city that has been in waiting for decades now. Until now, Bengaluru, like other cities in the state, was governed by the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act, 1976. The new law, which was vetted by a joint legislature committee, was already passed by the both the Houses of the state legislatures. The committee comprised legislatures of all the three major political parties of the state.
In terms of changes brought about by the new Act, Bengaluru will now have a Mayor with a tenure increased to 30 months from 12 months. This means that, during its five-year term, a council will see two Mayors who will each have a tenure of two-and-a-half years. The same will apply for Deputy Mayors.
Further, Bengaluru will now have 15 zones as opposed to the current eight zones, which will further be divided into 243 wards. The city limits will be extended by a 1 km radius, to bring some parts of the IT offices within the city limits. For this, a delimitation exercise to draw borders of new wards will be carried out in the coming months. As a push towards decentralisation, the zones will be headed by respective zonal committees responsible for the execution of developmental plans.
Each constituency will also have a separate consultative committee headed by the respective MLA, which will oversee development works of that constituency and will have members of resident welfare associations of the area.
In terms of revenue generation, the BBMP will now collect entertainment tax and levy fees for hoardings. In another likely avenue for greater revenue generation, the property tax will now be collected based on the net asset value of the property rather than the present system. Further a transport cess has also been proposed in the new law.
With the new Act, ward committees will be responsible for overseeing daily waste management of the wards. They will also be required to prepare an action plan considering the requirements, budgetary allocations and infrastructure requirements as per the Ward Micro Plan and otherpolicies of the BBMP.
The new BBMP law states that the state government shall constitute a Heritage Conservation Committee, which shall frame appropriate regulations for the protection, conservation and maintenance of heritage buildings and sites in the city.
Since the Act was tabled and passed by the state Assembly on December 10, critics have questioned the many core issues that the new law failed to address. These issues were in need of a thorough relook and already posed as a hindrance to the BBMP’s functioning as a capable self-sustaining governing body for the city.
More importantly, as widely promised, the contents of the Act were never discussed with the public at large before it was tabled and hurriedly passed; nor were there any consultations held by the joint committee with focus groups.
The lack of communication and coordination between these agencies has often led to distress of city residents, be it destruction of freshly tarred roads to lay water pipes, or ad hoc repair works by utility agencies flooding localities.