The polls to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council will be held on July 28, while the report of the BBMP Restructuring Committee is expected to be submitted to the government in the first week of July.
The question that is on everyone’s mind now is whether the BBMP will be restructured? And if so, when? Sources aver that the restructuring of the BBMP may take at least a year if there are no legal hurdles.
While the government has already put on record its intent to restructure, everything depends on the Chief Minister, sources said.
Even if the Bill to have multiple corporations, which is currently with the Legislature Select Committee, gets cleared, it will require the Governor’s assent.
Following this, the government must issue a notification and send it to the BBMP council for consultation. However, this is just a formality. “Once the new areas are notified, the BBMP then ceases to exist.”
However, this does not enable the three-tier structure that the BBMP Restructuring Committee is recommending. For that, a special Act that will replace the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976, needs to be drafted.
“The government will have to pilot the new Act for restructuring to happen scientifically. To draft a new Act for Bengaluru, create 400 wards, five corporations, transfer assets, put in place a manpower transfer policy, the government may take close to a year,” sources added.
Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Dinesh Gundu Rao told The Hindu that if the government had more time, then the polls would have been announced only after restructuring. “If the High Court had given us another four months time, the government could have brought in a new Act and scheduled the elections once and for all. A lot of exercise has been put in by the restructuring committee,” he noted.
However, the opposition BJP is sceptical. Rajajinagar MLA S. Suresh Kumar said the restructuring exercise was started with theagenda to postpone polls.
Terming it a “make believe” exercise, he said if the government had the intent, the process should have started at least one-and-half years ago.
