Vidhana Soudha

BBMP

A1 City status

house rent allowance

A-1 City to Bengaluru

The corridors ofwere rife with talks on Monday about the state government deciding to convene a special joint session of the legislature to pass a bill on trifurcation of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). This was being seen as a desperate move by the Congress-led government, whose plan of superseding thewent awry following court intervention. But the moot question is: Has anyone thought of the repercussions?Definitely not! Well, here comes the shocker: Bengaluru will lose theif it is trifurcated (divided into three parts). First to bear the brunt of this will be the over five lakh state government employees and over half-a-lakh central government staff residing in the city as theirwill be reduced from 30 per cent to 20 per cent. Second, the city's infrastructure growth will be severely affected as downgrading the city's status will lessen the flow of central funds.Bengaluru was given the A1 City tag in 2007 after the then Bangalore City Corporation was merged with the seven municipalities around the city. Bengaluru was the sixth city to get the status, after Delhi, Mumbal, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad.Now the axe will directly fall on these employees and it will have a major impact on the city's growth as the city will be known as having three different municipalities (after Congress government passes the bill in assembly). Confirming this to Bangalore Mirror, Union Law minister D V Sadananda Gowda said, "The Centre will have to act once the state government takes a call on trifurcation of BBMP. If the latter does, the status ofwill be removed."Gowda added, "It is also very clear that without any help from the central government, no corporation can stand on its own. The corporation needs financial help from the central government. Many projects funded by the central government will be automatically cut down."He said, "The central government decided the funding course on the basis of the city's population. The united BBMP has a population of nearly 1 crore, which will automatically get divided into three, once the BBMP is trifurcated. This will automatically force the central government to cut down the funds. For example, the Delhi corporation was trifurcated, and now they are once again planning to reunite the divided corporation. Once the funds are cut down, it will have a direct impact on the developmental activities."Gowda advises the Congress government to appoint senior-level IAS officers to take administrative decisions and decentralise power instead of trifurcating the BBMP. "Creating three mayors, deputy mayors and several standing committees will incur extra burden on the city. Once it is trifurcated, the revenue collection will also come down. While a corporation that has potential revenue-earning areas will be rich, the other two will be searching for revenue-generation avenues. The move will only result in lopsided development of the city," he maintained.Downsizing house rent allowance (HRA) will affect the budget of salaried middle-class families in the city. "Won't you get angry if your pay-packet reduces because the government wants to play politics by trifurcating the BBMP?" asked a government official.The state government refused to comment on the issue. Two ministers in the Siddaramaiah cabinet, whom Bangalore Mirror spoke to, confirmed moves on introducing a bill on trifurcation but maintained that they had no idea on the negative impact it will have on the city's A1 status.Former BBMP commissioner S Subramanya said, "Bengaluru will lose its identity if it loses the A1 City tag at this juncture. The city will be known by three municipalities and the people too will have to geographically re-identify themselves. The move will impact IT business too"Subramanya added, "Suppose the three civic bodies are ruled by three different political parties, the one which has the IT cluster of Whitefield and Mahadevapura will see more growth because of higher fund generation while the other two civic agencies may not see the same growth. While roads in the tech corridor will become bigger and smooth those in other parts of the city will struggle to even fill potholes.”