Urban Ooru

Picking off from where we left off, the State Government recently introduced “The Greater Bengaluru Governance Bill, 2024” in the Legislative Assembly on 22 nd July 2024. As per the bill, it intends to “(i). Establish the Greater Bengaluru Authority for coordinating and supervising the development of the Greater Bengaluru Area; (ii). Establish not more than ten City Corporations in the Greater Bengaluru Area for effective, participatory and responsive governance: (iii). Empower Ward Committees to become basic units of urban governance and facilitate community participation; (iv). Integrate and streamline political accountability of all public authorities delivering services in the Greater Bengaluru Authority; (v). Improve the quality of life of all citizens by instituting a decentralised, participative, efficient and equitable governance framework for Bengaluru; and (vi). Provide for matters incidental thereto.” The bill envisages a civic organisation with: 1.       Greater Bengal

When something goes wrong in a neighbourhood, who does one call? Who is that elected people’s representative that one goes to? Most of us may think of the local MLA or MP. Rarely do we think of the Councillor or as we call it, the Corporator. In 1992, the Parliament enacted the 73 rd (Panchayati Raj) and the 74 th (Urban Local Bodies) Constitutional Amendment. This enabled the devolution of powers from the state governments to local governments. The intent of this was to ensure that functions like building and maintenance of roads, health, water and electricity supply would be the responsibility of the local government. This meant that citizens could voice their needs to their elected representative for effective provision of services. While it is by many measures insufficient, the 12 th Schedule of the 74 th Amendment outlines the 18 functions that Urban Local Body (ULB) needs to carry out. However, in many states including Karnataka, even these responsibilities have not been fu