Have Bengaluru's Ward Committee meetings turned into grievance forums

Ward Committee meetings in K'taka's capital city only hear old complaints over and over as new grievances are not even registered.

A noisy, crowded room, people talking over each other, stacks of papers and files, the ward corporator nodding along to fresh concerns, and committee members presenting their seventh draft of the same complaint. Such are the ward committee meetings in Bengaluru.

The ward committee rules state that the corporator must ensure follow-up of the grievances and “Action Taken” reports should be presented. (Milind Saurkar/HT Photo)

The Hemmigepura ward committee meeting saw residents of the ward expressing their concerns and grievances for most of the meetings. The Karnataka Municipal Corporations Ward Committee Rules mention that the ward corporators must discuss new development plans for the ward in the monthly meeting.

But the corporator merely noted down the concerns and grievances and assured the people that action will be taken. The grievances that are raised by citizens in a ward council meeting are not given tracking numbers or are registered on any traceable platform.

The ward committee rules state that the corporator must ensure follow-up of the grievances and “Action Taken” reports should be presented. The rules also state that a ward committee meeting should be announced a week before the meeting, but this is not in practice.

According to the 2016 amendment of the The Karnataka Municipalities (Amendment) Act, a ward council is supposed to prepare the ward’s development plan, monitor the ward’s in-progress works and ensure efficient use of funds, none of which were followed in the Hemmigepura ward committee meeting.

A resident from the Hemmigepura ward said, “The committee members and welfare association leaders bring up the same concerns in multiple meetings, which are meant to keep track of these concerns. New concerns are not given much heed as there is no feasible way to record them.”

Several wards in Bengaluru don’t conduct ward committee meetings and those which do, conduct them infrequently. The Corporators of Chowdeswari and Vidyaranyapura wards said most meetings are conducted on the first Saturday of the month, while some may be postponed due to absenteeism.

These wards suffer from chronic problems like drainage, encroachment from private organizations and laying of gas line pipes but these problems stay unresolved due to a coordination gap between departments like BWSSB, BBMP and BESCOM.

Even though Bengaluru is known as the IT capital of India, there is no digitalization of the meeting proceedings, which would help keep track of resolved concerns and keep the public informed of progress, if any.