Much like the innumerable potholes dotting the city’s roads, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s record is chequered with allegations of corruption and scams.
With the Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) upping the ante, a flurry of cases have been filed since 2012. In the past three years, 412 cases have been filed by the BMTF against BBMP officials, compared to just one since 1996 when the watchdog was set up to keep an eye on erring civic bodies.
Many of these cases pertain to multi-crore scams that have been pointed out by the Technical Vigilance Committee (TVC) of the BBMP Commissioner. The biggest one was in 2012 when the body alleged irregularities since 2008-09 in at least 10,100 ward-level works in Malleswaram, Rajarajeshwarinagar and Gandhinagar Assembly constituencies involving Rs. 1,500 crore.
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Numerous such cases pockmark the tenure of the BBMP, and there seems to be no aspect of its function that is in the clear.
Even garbage generated seems to be considered ill-gotten wealth by some officials. A Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) 2013 report pointed irregularities in Rs. 630.28 crore of payments to garbage contractors.
In February 2015, BMTF booked three officials of the Finance Department for withdrawing Rs. 49 crore by forging documents. Nearly 149 works are in the scanner in this case alone. Two months later, 18 officials, including four joint commissioners, were booked after irregularities were detected in acquisition of Transferable Development Rights (TDR) for properties outside BBMP limits.
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In May, the alleged suicide of a 34-year-old sub-contractor revealed the seedy side of payment of dues owed by the corporation. Though financial reasons were purported to be the reason for the extreme step, his family had alleged that BBMP officials demanded a bribe to clear dues of Rs. 1 crore.
These scams form only a part of the corruption that seems to have seeped deep into the civic body. The website, ipaidabribe.com – where users can complain of officials who demanded a bribe – notes more than 650 complaints pertain to the BBMP alone. Complaints range from paying bribes for B-khata to trade licences to even photocopies of tax collection receipts.