Hunt on for BMP head

Hunt on for BMP head
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: The choice of successor to Chief Secretary B K Das, who is retiring this month, is expected to have a direct impact on the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP).

The government may offer the post of BMP Administrator to the senior officer next in line with a reasonable length of service left.

This is because the term of the BMP elected council is set to expire in November, and the government is in no mood to notify elections immediately.

The government in any case has posted K Jairaj as BMP Commissioner with a view to quicken the pace of civic works and projects, and the elected council was also perceived to have come in the way to some extent.

In the absence of the council, however, the BMP Commissioner cannot act independently, and the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (KMC) Act, 1976, provides for appointment of an administrator as a stopgap arrangement to discharge the functions of the elected council.

The resolutions, in any case, go to the government for its final approval.

There has been a thinking in the government for some time now that a senior officer, perhaps of the rank of Additional Chief Secretary, should head the BMP so that coordination with other departments will become easy.

It will also reflect the importance of Bangalore, and this, in any case, is the practice in metros.

Since Jairaj himself is fairly senior and of the rank of Principal Secretary to government, only an officer above him in seniority could be considered for the Administrator’s post. The government will placate a senior officer with the post so that no one will nurse a heartburn.

Malati Das, A K Agarwal and Renuka Viswanathan are in the reckoning, and it is not known if P B Mahishi will eventually get to the top job. In the event, either Malati Das or Agarwal will be offered the post.

Renuka Viswanathan, as it is, is holding the key post of Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development in Government of India, and it is not known she will accept even if offered the Chief Secretary’s post.

GREATER B’LORE: The government has plans to kick start some of its ambitious projects aimed at redesigning urban governance and urban reforms while the BMP is under an administrator.