BBMP proposed to be split up into five corporations

The Hindu

a day ago

Brand Bengaluru Committee, that presented the first draft of the Greater Bengaluru Governance Bill, 2024, that provided for multiple corporations in the city's civic limits, has proposed the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) be divided into five corporations.
The Committee made a presentation of the same with the proposed boundaries of the five corporations to Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister D.K. Shivakumar and Home Minister G. Parameshwara on Monday.
Revenue difference ₹100 crore
The Brand Bengaluru Committee has proposed five corporations - Central, North, East, West, and South, sources said. The proposed corporations have been drawn with maintaining balance in revenue generation and to avoid Assembly constituencies being cut in multiple corporations, as two key criteria.
The maximum variance in the revenue generation capacity of these proposed five corporations is said to have been kept at ₹100 crore and only three to five Assembly constituencies would be cut into multiple corporations, sources said. Mahadevapura and K.R. Puram Assembly constituencies that house the city's IT corridor and hence generate the highest revenue will be split up into multiple corporations, sources said.
However, this has led to wide variance in the area and population of these proposed corporations. While population density is high in the west, its revenue generation capacity is low, and its converse is true in the present East and Mahadevapura zones. Keeping balancing revenue generation capacity as a key criteria, has led to proposed corporations where the largest corporation is more than double the size of the smallest, and population also varies in the ratio of 1:3 between the smallest and largest corporations, sources said.
'Will take opposition into confidence'
Following the meeting, Mr. Shivakumar told media persons that he had told the committee chairman that the Opposition leaders need to be taken into confidence on the report, following which he would discuss it in the Cabinet. 'The corporations would be formed within the existing boundaries of the BBMP and it would be expanded at a later date. We need to conduct elections as early as possible,' he said.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (Secular) have consistently opposed the idea of splitting up BBMP into multiple corporations. It can be recalled that it was a JD(S)-BJP government which expanded the erstwhile civic body in 2007 to include 110 villages, multiple city and town municipal corporations from 225 sq km to 709 sq km to form BBMP. During the previous BJP regime, the State government brought in BBMP Act, 2020, a dedicated law to govern Bengaluru, but under a single corporation set up.
The State government is keen to put out the proposed boundaries of multiple corporations over the next one month, seeking objections from the public. The government has committed itself in the court to hold elections by the end of the year, sources said. Come September this year, it will be five years without an elected council in the city.