Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s move to form an expert committee, led by Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, to guide his government’s policy on Bengaluru has its fair share of critics given that similar earlier initiatives were not successful.
“Such expert committees offset the city’s civic body and Bengaluru Metropolitan Planning Committee which are tasked with planning for the city,” said N.S. Mukunda, founder, Citizen Action Forum (CAF).
The Environment Support Group (ESG) and CAF are planning to challenging the setting up of such committees in court on the grounds that they are “extra-constitutional” and opposed to the spirit of the 74th amendment of the Constitution.
In 2014, the High Court of Karnataka had stayed the formation of a similar Bengaluru Vision Group (BVG) when activist C.N. Kumar questioned it on the ground that the Bengaluru Metropolitan Planning Committee was yet to be constituted. However, the court vacated the stay in 2015 after BMPC was notified, leading to the BVG being formed in 2016.
BVG was also led by industry captains, Mr. Murthy and Wipro chairman Azim Premji, and it had only one meeting and was later not pursued following public outcry.
“There can be committees which can make recommendations, but have to be eventually subservient to BMPC, a constitutionally mandated committee. Let us see how the committee is formed,” said Mr. Kumar.
However past experience from such committees, BATF during 1999-2004, AbiDE from 2010-2013, BVG in 2016, show that these are skewed towards industry leaders and the elite of the city and often end up running roughshod over both executive and political representatives, argues Kshitij Urs, People’s Campaign for Right to Water (PCRW).
“TenderSURE project was a classic example of subversion of the due process. The chief secretary at the time had issued an order that BBMP officials cannot intervene in the project, when BBMP was funding the project,” said Mr. Urs.