Contrary to conventional wisdom, the urbanised areas bordering the city limits are not keen on joining the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), but prefer to remain under gram panchayat administrative structures.
Public representatives and residents argue that gram panchayats offer better decentralisation of decision-making and utilisation of funds. The lack of basic infrastructure in many areas that were added to the BBMP limits in 2007 is another deterrent.
Sampath Ramanujam, member of the Seegehalli Gram Panchayat near Whitefield, said the residents would prefer to remain under a gram panchayat. “With rapid development in these areas, there is a good tax base that provides the panchayat enough resources to work. That apart, the decision-making is completely local. Even the people-to-representative ratio is much better here when compared with city corporations. This also creates competition among representatives to ensure better access to services for their electorate,” he said. He said if added to the BBMP limits, residents would have to struggle to get even minor work done. “The priorities of the BBMP are entirely different and we will not be able to find our space there,” he said.
Even those areas that have moved to urban governance structures such as town municipal councils (TMCs) are not happy. Ashokan K., a member of the Bengaluru Urban Zilla Panchayat from the recently constituted Hunasamaranahalli TMC, said they were better off as a gram panchayat. This was because decision-making was localised and more funds were at their disposal under various schemes. Under the TMC, all this has taken a hit, he claimed.
K.S. Krishnappa, a resident of Anchepalya that is now part of the recently constituted Madanayakanahalli TMC, said residents once hoped to be included under the BBMP as they thought inclusion would mean appreciation of land prices. He said development and administration of the area were better off under the panchayat limits.
“For instance, Manjunath Nagar and Totadaguddadahalli that were included under the BBMP in 2007 still lack many facilities. Anchepalya, which was under gram panchayat, has better roads, water and sanitation amenities, apart from much better garbage collection system,” he said.
Meanwhile, Congress MLA Krishna Byre Gowda from Byatarayanapura pointed out that the residents of these areas were neither consulted when the BJP Government included a clause on inclusion of area in i-km radius from the BBMP border, nor when they dropped the proposal.
Urbanist Ashwin Mahesh said the trend clearly indicated the lack of decentralisation in urban governance, which was contrary to that of rural governance structures. “These urbanised areas under rural governance structures want the cake and eat it too. They have allowed dense urbanisation of their areas but want to remain under rural governance structures — this is a clear gap. The answer is better urban governance,” he said.