Citizens to decide city’s future

Citizens to decide city’s future
ABIDe Seeks People’s Views On Development
R Krishnakumar | TNN

Bangalore: From closed-door deliberations and detailed vision statements, it’s time to reach out to the people. Bangalore’s high-level development task force will soon open up to the concerns and capabilities of the city’s most important stakeholder: its people.
The Agenda for Bangalore Infrastructure Development (ABIDe) task force will have its first public consultation meeting on January 17. It’s expected to host between 300 and 500 civic group representatives and volunteers at the meeting. This meet is part of a run-up to its formal presentation to the government on four critical areas: security, governance, transportation and urban poor.
“The period between January and March will be a phase of action for ABIDe. The public consultation is an effort to collate people’s views on these four areas before we present the final reports to the government,’’ said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP and convener of the task force.
BURNING QUESTIONS
Bangaloreans’ priorities on development will be the meeting’s focus. The changing aesthetics of the city as it keeps pace with development and means to better public transportation will be part of the discussions. “For instance, there are proposals to construct a slew of elevated roads across the city. The meeting will try to figure out what citizen wants. Do they really want these roads or would they rather bear a bit of congestion on existing roads?’’ Chandrasekhar said.
Representatives of residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) will be invited, as will volunteers who have come forward to work for the task force. ABIDe members have requested volunteers — over 4,000 responses so far — to wait till the reports are ready. Once enrolled, volunteers will report issues to the task force that will, in turn, refer the cases to the concerned municipal agency.
The four blueprints have been compiled with Chandrasekhar and Ananth Kumar MP, vice-chairman of the task force at the helm, along with A Ravindra, former chief secretary; R K Misra, winner of TOI’s Lead India initiative; Ashwin Mahesh from the Centre for Public Policy (CPP), IIM-Bangalore, and Anitha Reddy, director of AVAS. The venue of the meeting and other details are being finalized.
toiblr.reporter@timesgroup.com GEARING UP FOR ACTION
Public consultation on January 17 People’s views to be collated before report to government RWAs, volunteers to be present Over 4,000 volunteers have responded