It was meant to be a consultation between two primary civic agencies of Bengaluru about the future of the city. But of the 198 councillors, less than 20 attended the discussion on the Draft Revised Master Plan – 2031 during the council meeting of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Wednesday.
The councillors not only cut short the presentation on the draft RMP by Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) officials, they also started complaining about things unrelated to the plan.
They accused the BDA of collecting development tax, keeping corner and CA sites and then handing over the layouts to the BBMP without developing infrastructure. “If Bengaluru is a banana, BDA is the fruit and BBMP is the discarded peel,” said Padmanabha Reddy, Leader of the Opposition in the council. He also alleged that he was not provided a copy of the draft plan which made it impossible for him to participate in the discussion, though the plan is available on the BDA website.
BDA authorities were criticised for presenting the draft plan to the BBMP council after it was prepared. “The BDA must have consulted the council during the drafting of the plan. It will never get the ground-level inputs like we do, and consultation with the BBMP council is mandatory,” said Mr. Reddy.
The rest of the debate mostly centred on councillors seeking clarifications from the BDA on changes to floor-area ratio (FAR) and related road width norms; how there was no land allotted for car parking; and how the BDA should take over widening of roads in the city.
The derailment of the discussion left citizens unimpressed. N.S. Mukunda of the Citizen Action Forum said Wednesday’s BBMP council meeting was symptomatic of the disease. “None of those governing us knows the intricacies of governing a mega city like Bengaluru. Let alone the BBMP, many in the BDA also do not know the importance and impact of the master plan for the city,” he said.
