The city’s civic body on Tuesday notified 127 ward committees just a day before the High Court hearing on the matter. The list of ward committee members has been published on the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) website — bbmp.gov.in.
However, civic activists fighting for formation of ward committees remain cautious over this much anticipated development. Kathyayini Chamaraj of CIVIC said while there was no formal procedure to invite applications from public to become members of the ward committees, people had indeed applied. “We are yet to see how many people not proposed by councillors have been made members of the ward committees. We have sought under the Right to Information Act to give us the list of names recommended by the councillors of these wards to help us compare that with the final composition of the ward committees. We will be able to form a conclusive opinion only after we get the lists.” Srinivas Alavilli of Citizens for Bengaluru said that a preliminary glance at the ward committee notification revealed that none of the citizen nominees or applicants were on board. “It is a terrible thing to pack all ward committees with the cronies of councillors,” he said.
BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad, however, dismissed the allegations that all members of ward committees were recommended by councillors. “We pooled all applications from citizens and recommendations by the councillors and constituted these ward committees in consultation with the ward councillor. While there have been rules for the composition of ward committees, there is no procedure laid down for the selection process,” he said.
