The State Cabinet has given the go-ahead for trifurcation of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). While the decision has been hailed, several citizens have begun to question if Bengaluru will go the New Delhi way.
After trifurcation, there are murmurs that the three Corporations will be merged again.
The three-member panel tasked with BBMP restructuring allegedly threatened to resign, as the State Cabinet was about to decide on the division of BBMP, sources confirmed to The Hindu .
Behind the scenes drama played out as, though the BBMP restructuring committee was involved in the consultative process, a cabinet note prepared by the Urban Development Department (UDD) on the issue had recommended the BBMP trifurcation without inputs from the restructuring committee.
The committee prepared an interim report in a few hours recommending a three-tier governance and division of BBMP into five to eight municipalities.
However, the Cabinet went ahead with the decision to trifurcate BBMP.
Sources say the ruling party based its decision on the B.L. Shankar committee report. The committee, formed by the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee in 2014, had recommended the trifurcation. This has led to allegations of short-sighted political considerations for the trifurcation.
The problemsThe Delhi Corporation was similarly trifurcated in 2011 allegedly with political considerations.
However, the municipalities suffering from unequal revenues are being considered for a re-merger now.
Will Bengaluru also go the Delhi way? That is the question that is nagging away at most urban activists.
The BBMP restructuring committee is working on the GIS mapping of the city and waiting for the ward delimitation to be completed before redrawing the boundaries of the new municipalities.
A member of the BBMP restructuring committee said the new municipalities would not be just regrouping of present zones, but completely redrawn spatially in such a way that all municipalities will get a share of the core city, the major revenue source, will take into account the language demographic and public places and other resources be distributed equitably.
Cabinet to reconsiderThe restructuring committee met the Chief Minister to register their protest against the Cabinet decision.
He has agreed to reconsider the trifurcation in July, based on the data provided by the restructuring committee to support their claim, a member of the committee said.
