With all the 3 main players in the polls?- Congress, BJP, JD-S?busy sorting out domestic issues of ticket distribution, the poll time rhetoric strangely has hit an eerie silence. Even the media has been quite content playing an observer role in stark contrast to its activism during the Gujarat assembly polls.
To stir the political debate, Offstumped is making a radical proposition.
For long now the infrastructure woes and the urban chaos in Bangalore have been a matter of public debate. If the Bangalore versus Karnataka debate saw an over zealous S.M. Krishna lose an election it also saw an unseemly controversy that had the Darth Vader of Karnataka politics, Deve Gowda doing a hit job on Infosys Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy. Ultimately it was the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Project that saw the JD-S making unreasonable demands of its coalition partners.
The unseemly politics over the urban-rural debate have ensured many a initiative die a premature death. This story in the Business Standard explains why the state of Bangalore?s civic body, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), provides an object lesson on how not to run a city.? From missed milestones in the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), to the premature death of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, the urban slide of Bangalore is a sad commentary of missed opportunities and delinquent leadership.
In fact what little out of the box thinking has happened in Bangalore was from outside of the government with Bangalore citizens, Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani and the NGO Janaagraha?s founder Ramesh Ramanathan playing a key role.
Hence this radical proposal from Offstumped.
For far too long Civic Urban Governance in Bangalore has been held hostage by the bureaucrats and State politicians operating out of Vidhan Soudha. It is time Bangalore was freed from the control of the State Government and granted autonomy to chart its own destiny.
Urban Governance in Bangalore demands that infrastructure development and civic services not be held hostage to state politics. This can only happen when the local government is the direct beneficiary of tax revenues and is directly accountable to the people for civic services, law enforcement and urban planning. This is also the best practice the world over, little wonder the New York City Mayor’s job is considered the second toughest next only to the U.S President.
Hence this call to action from Offstumped to the BJP, to put its promise of Minimum Government Maximum Governance to practice and promise to bring legislation that will give full autonomy to the BBMP to run Bangalore independent of the bureaucracy of Karnataka while being directly accountable to the people of Bangalore for all urban civic and law enforcement services.
Is the BJP up to this challenge ?
Filed under: Karnataka Polls 2008, Uncategorized
[...] this call to action from Offstumped to the BJP, to put its promise of Minimum Government Maximum Governance to practice and promise to [...]
Hi yossarin, I’m glad you replied to my comment on Ambedkar.
Though I support the idea that Bangalore should be free unnecessary bureaucratic burdens and lack of political will that is bogging downits growth, involving the corporate sector too rapidly and giving too much freedom to the municipal corporation there may result in disproportional spending in areas which area of interest to upper middle class and educated people; maybe furthering the headstart they already have.
What i propose is that first a framework should be formed to make municipal corporation directly accountable with some relevant checks and balances and slowly, but surely we can proceed in the direction you have suggested.
Hi yossarin, I’m glad you replied to my comment on Ambedkar.
Though I support the idea that Bangalore should be free from unnecessary bureaucratic burdens and lack of political will that is bogging down its growth, involving the corporate sector too rapidly and giving too much freedom to the municipal corporation there may result in disproportional spending in areas which area of interest to upper middle class and educated people; maybe furthering the head start they already have.
What i propose is that first a framework should be formed to make municipal corporation directly accountable with some relevant checks and balances and slowly, but surely we can proceed in the direction you have suggested.
Pritish – The corporation should not have autonomy without accountability. In most cities in the West the City Managers and Police Commissioners are either directly acocuntable to the elected officials – Mayors and corporators or aldermen or they themselves are directly elected by the people. Any proposal for autonomy must be based on one of these 2 models.
Good proposal. Doubt if there will be any takers though.
Deve Gowda might be Darth Vader, but Kumaraswamy is no Luke.
[...] « Karnataka Polls – Autonomy for Bangalore [...]
[...] development and development. We have a separate plan for Bangalore and the rest of Karnataka. Bangalore is congested and it seems investors are shying away from here. [...]
I agree with your suggestion. Autonomy will be granted by forming new state or special region. Also I don’t understand how will people outside Banglore will perceive it.
Whats happening in Bangalore is surely what India is watching!
I agree with your suggestion on giving more autonomy, to Bangalore in particular and all other parts of India in general. I have put up a post on similar lines: http://pramodbiligiri.livejournal.com/42341.html
The third level of government after hte centre and the states, in India, already exists. Only that the States themselves are loath to part with power. When a feudal overseer like Karunanidhi talks about autonomy, he means to end it with himself his children and his cronies. Witness the way his thug of a son azhagiri roams free after leading a lynch mob against a local newspaper and killing three staffers at the Dinakaran. Of course Tehelka can’t be bothered with doing a spy cam on them. The DMK is progressive isn’t it? Rajiv Gandhi’s panchayat bill was meant to restructure the flow of funds between the center and the states and devolve some funding directly to them. But the states – mostly feudal opposition run and the commies – would have none of it. Nothing even now prevents us from having mayor run cities. Madras already has a directly elected mayor for a 5-year term. We could switch over to a Presidential form of mayoralties and then have elected district overseers gradually relegating the IAS. But then the IAS lobby will have none of it.
hi ,
Privitisation is the key people used to say. I find more redtape in godrej, Aqua guard than say Railways or BSNL.The worst thing is unfettered privitisation without accountability.
BJP can win friends just by making small things more trasparent and ACCOUNTABLE.
See i am central govt pensioner with icard living in Bangalore but everywhere so much corruption from the time i came here in 2000 even in getting katha,driving license, voter icard,ration card,passport,Bescom transfer etc.It can easily involve retired defense personnel as some sort of complaint takers who can just ACCEPT A COMPLAINT AND FORWARD TO GOVERNMENT.This itself will act as deterrence to petty corruption which eats its way up.They are improving the roads but i donot see any other change in governance. time will pass quickly.They must change all old big cats who try to wiggle in.
[...] Karnataka Polls – Autonomy for Bangalore 19 Dec 2008 | Concerning Karnataka Polls 2008, jeetega-bharat [...]