Dr. Rajkumar Khatri has been posted as the new commissioner of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) after T. Sham Bhat was moved out of the authority on Tuesday.
The transfer comes at a crucial time when the Revised Master Plan-2031 (RMP-2031) is being given the final touches and is all set to be submitted to the Bengaluru Metropolitan Planning Committee for its approval in another two months time. The critical post of the Chief Planner of BDA, who spearheads the Master Plan exercise, is also vacant. Chowdegowda, who held the post earlier, retired from service on May 31 and the government is yet to appoint anybody for the post.
Civic activists, who were up in arms against the lack of transparency and public consultation in preparing the RMP-2031, are now demanding a series of public consultation meets before finalising the draft. BDA, under Mr. Bhat, had held a single consultation meet in 2015.
“The master plan needs to be prepared with widespread public consultation. But what has now happened is that the master plan has been prepared in complete secrecy and BDA is fully opaque over the issue. They are likely to put out the draft master plan and give a month’s time for submitting objections, if any. This is not how the law defines public consultation,” said N.S. Mukunda of Citizen Action Forum.
Mr. Bhat held charge as the BDA Commissioner for almost four years from August 2012 and is to retire by year-end. The re-modification scheme of Arkavathy Layout that ran into troubled waters in the midst of allegations of widespread corruption was one of the biggest controversies to dog BDA during Mr. Bhat’s stint as Commissioner.
