Bill to bring public transport under one umbrella passed

The Karnataka Assembly on Tuesday passed the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA) Bill, which aims to bring all public transportation services in Bengaluru under one umbrella, including autorickshaws, city buses and metro trains

The Karnataka Assembly on Tuesday passed the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA) Bill, which aims to bring all public transportation services in Bengaluru under one umbrella, including autorickshaws, city buses and metro trains.

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The authority is believed to help address the public mobility crisis of the city.

According to Karnataka law and parliamentary affairs minister JC Madhuswamy, Bengaluru city transportation will come under the BMLTA’s purview, and the jurisdiction of the proposed authority will be 279 sq km.

“This Authority has been planned to integrate all the modes of public transport. It will take all the policy decisions related to urban mobility,” Madhuswamy said as he moved the BMLTA bill proposed by chief minister Basavaraj Bommai in the Karnataka assembly.

The minister explained that the bill seeks to supplement the National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP), which lays down a framework for the integration of various functions of institutions and departments to enable holistic transport planning.

Backing the bill, Bommai said Bengaluru did not grow in a planned manner where the growth was on one side while planning was on the other. “The roads did not widen, but every day 5,000 new vehicles are added to the city. The city has 1.3 crore people, but soon the number of vehicles here will overtake the city population,” Bommai said.

He also underlined the need for a scientific study. In this regard, the Bengaluru-headquartered Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has been contacted to do the study, he added.

The chief minister will serve as the ex-officio chairperson of the BMLTA, with the Bengaluru in-charge minister and state transport minister serving as vice chairpersons. Other members of the BMLTA include the chief secretary, additional chief secretaries, the Bengaluru mayor, the commissioner of police, and representatives from various government agencies and civil society.

The BMLTA’s duties and functions will be to promote seamless mobility through sustainable urban transport and integration of land use and transport planning in the Urban Mobility Region by preparing and updating the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP).

Citizen activist and Convenor - Citizens’ Agenda for Bengaluru, Sandeep Anirudhan, “Having come after such a long period of reluctance and dragging of feet by the Govt, it is indeed a positive development.”

“However, the Bill by itself has very little to cheer about. Loud demands for pre-legislative Public Consultation were ignored. So, now it will be an uphill task to improve the act by amendments,” Anirudhan added.

Pointing at the shortcomings that need to be fixed, Anirudhan said the BMLTA does not report to the city government or the city planning authority, the MPC. “This essentially will lead to more confusion, and goes against the 74th Amendment of the Constitution.”

“BMLTA is authorised to create a Comprehensive Mobility Plan in isolation, this is disastrous and ill-conceived. A mobility plan is a subset of a land use plan. Hence, the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) has to be a subset of the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) or the Revised Masterplan (RMP). In this bill, it is prescribed to be just the opposite. Nothing could be worse,” Anirudhan said.

He said the BMLTA would not have any real authority over service providers or transport assets. “It is merely a committee. Hence, it’s likely nobody will pay it any attention. It has no fiscal authority for all transport-related projects. If all transport-related agencies have to go through it for financing, it will cement its authority, and perhaps they will listen to it.”

“Sufficient capacity building is required with a dedicated team of urban planners and transport planners. The BMLTA should be devolved away from the State Govt. It should be a sub-set of the City Govt. The CM or any state ministers should not have any role in it,” Aniruddhan added.

Civic activist Srinivas Alavilli welcomed the BMLTA Bill and said this is a new beginning for integrated and sustainable transport in Bengaluru. “So happy to hear that #BMLTA bill has been passed. This is truly a new beginning for integrated and sustainable transport in Bengaluru! Here’s wishing that the BMLTA becomes real soon. Thanks to so many wonderful citizens that lobbied for this tirelessly,” he tweeted.