The city should gear up for a period of chaos in urban governance and planning, it seems, with the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to be restructured before the next polls to the civic body.
The delay in holding the polls has sent the work of the Bangalore Metropolitan Planning Committee (BMPC) for a toss, and with it the larger planning for the city.
The BMPC, mandated by the 74th amendment to the Constitution, was formed in August last year after a prolonged struggle by urban activists. It is responsible for planning for the city. It is headed by the chief minister.
Ideally, the MPC should have spearheaded the Master Plan 2031 as the existing Master Plan 2015 will expire by 2017.
However, the BMPC has not met even once since it was formed.
Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), which is to prepare the master plan, has not even had a single public hearing on the issue.
Forget a pro-active approach, the BMPC is not even existent in its full form today after 12 BBMP councillors resigned miffed over the dysfunctional body. This leaves 12 of the 20 posts for elected members vacant.
Meanwhile, the State government is mulling over bringing an ordinance to dissolve BBMP after the term of the present council comes to an end on April 22, sources say. This is to circumvent the High Court order to hold civic polls by May 30.
This will enable the government to restructure city governance into multiple municipalities and hold elections later.
The BMPC will also be reconstituted factoring in the multiple municipalities to be formed. At present, there are 20 elected members of which 18 are from the BBMP.
As the term of the current council comes to an end on April 22, BMPC will become toothless till new members are elected. Only elected members of MPC have voting rights.
This effectively means the city will not have a functional constitutionally mandated planning body for the next one year, at least.
The BBMP restructuring committee, in its second interim report based on which the State cabinet recently resolved to trifurcate the civic body, has recommended that the BMPC be turned into a Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA).
The GBA will be headed by the chief minister. Members will be the directly elected mayors of municipalities and other councillors.
The report also recommended that the State government's control over the authority should be withdrawn over a period of 10 years and a directly elected mayor to the metropolitan region replace the chief minister as head of the MPC.
