Greater Bangalore in a legal vacuum, BMP to take on Government

Greater Bangalore in a legal vacuum, BMP to take on Government
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) seems to be all set to take on the Government on the Greater Bangalore issue.

The Government’s draft notification was issued after the last meeting of the BMP council and the civic body is not sure if it can hold another council meeting. Mayor Mumtaz Begum said that the Government had adopted ‘undemocratic’ methods to push through the constitution of Bruhat BMP.

During the council meeting on October 31, Begum had asked the Commissioner to seek legal opinion to hold a special meeting of the council around November 15, as there was no precedent of holding a meeting in the last month of the council’s term. The present BMP council’s term ends on November 24. Begum said that the Government should not use the legal vacuum on such a major decision concerning BMP.

Friday’s draft notification is issued under Sections 3 and 4 of Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act 1976 and it assumes that merger is the only option without even seeking the opinion of BMP council as required by rules.

Section 4(2)b of the KMC Act stipulates that no merger can be notified unless the matter is referred to BMP seeking its opinion within 30 days of draft notification.

Further, the Section 3 merely lays down the conditions for declaring a smaller urban body as a Corporation. The Act says that a smaller urban body can be declared a City Corporation if the population is more than 3 lakh and if the annual revenue generated by the existing urban body exceeds Rs 6 crore.

However, former Mayor P R Ramesh was sure that the Government had designed the entire process of BBMP to ‘claim ownership’ of Greater Bangalore by sidelining BMP. There are many better options than Greater Bangalore to upgrade the quality of urban governance in CMC areas and the Government cannot take a unilateral decision, he said.