BMP not doing enough, but getting more on its plate

BMP not doing enough, but getting more on its plate
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: The State Government’s move to merge the seven municipal councils and a town panchayat on the City’s periphery with the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) looks more like a spur-of-the moment decision.

This is sought to be done even before the civic body is assigned with functions the 74th amendment to the Constitution mandates the State Government to confer.

The decision on merger comes on the heels of the flooding of many residential localities on the City outskirts in the recent rains. If all these areas are brought under the BMP, the Government feels, infrastructure needs would get equal attention.

The 74th amendment sought to strengthen the urban local bodies (ULBs) so as to make them a third tier government. But the Karnataka government gave it a go by and now it is in a hurry to merge the CMCs with the BMP.

If the Constitutional provisions enshrined in the 74th amendment are implemented, most city services would come under BMP. That would eliminate the general lack of co-ordination among various civic agencies.

In fact this was the very objective behind the Government’s moves to create Bangalore Metropolitan Authority.

Even if the CMCs and BMP are merged, with multiple stake holder organisations, the chaos would continue.

The amendment has put water supply, city planning, fire services, economic planning, regulation of land use and slum improvemnt as the duties of BMP.

But the City has different organisations providing these services and the BMP has no control over them. On the other hand many states have implemented the amendment but Karnataka has put the functions under the amendment as ‘discretionary’ and not ‘obligatory’.

The same is the plight of the ULBs all over the State and the merger of the weak ULBs may not be a solution.