The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Infrastructure projects in city may continue to take a beating

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Monday, Oct 13, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Infrastructure projects in city may continue to take a beating

T.S. Ranganna

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission ends in 2012

Bangalore: The infrastructure projects in and around Bangalore city under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) will continue to suffer from lack of finance for one more year, if the delay in holding elections to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), even beyond the three-month deadline given by the Karnataka High Court to the State Government, is any indication.

Under JNNURM, the State Government would not be eligible to get matching grants from the Centre for the civic work such as development of roads, drains, laying water supply lines and providing civic amenities, particularly in the areas, which were brought under the BBMP, if the latter did not have an elected council.

The term of the BBMP expired two years ago and the Government is yet to hold elections.

The State Election Commission (SEC), entrusted with the responsibility of holding elections to the urban local bodies, has been fighting a battle with the State Government to conduct elections in Bangalore for over one year, with little success.

The former Mayor and Congress leader P.R. Ramesh had even moved the High Court against the delay in elections.

The High Court had accepted Mr. Ramesh’s petition and directed the Government to hold elections within three months and the deadline had come to end on October 2, but there was no sign of any attempts at speeding up the process of holding elections. Even the SEC has moved the High Court against the reluctance of the Government to hold BBMP elections.

Mr. Ramesh, a few weeks ago, had filed a contempt petition against the Chief Secretary and others for failing to obey the High Court order. The Government continues to remain unmoved by these developments and is trotting out one reason after another for further delaying the elections. According to the sources, the JNNURM programme would come to an end in 2012 and already three out of seven years of the implementation period had lapsed.

The BBMP had been able to get approval for works amounting to around Rs. 1,300 crore.

The sources added that the proposals forwarded by it to the authorities at the Centre were returned for the reason that it had no elected body and the subjects had not been discussed by the councillors.

The people living in developed areas under seven city municipal councils, one town municipal council and 110 villages, on the outskirts of Bangalore were craving for civic facilities.

The SEC had told the court that it required at least three months to hold elections after the Government furnished to it the list of 150 delimited wards and reservation rota while the Government had maintained that it could not complete the process, because it was busy with the work of assisting in the Legislative Assembly elections.

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