Bengaluru ward committee meetings are becoming increasingly popular:Study
Civic activists say that ward committees are where democracy comes to life. In Bengaluru, they are becoming more popular and have been meeting more often in the last six months. Between September and December of last year, the city’s civic body held 1,553 of the 1,864 ward committee meetings that were required by law. The study was done by Janaagraha, a Bengaluru-based NGO.
Janaagraha says that from September 2021 to April 2022, there were 1,170 meetings, but between August 2020 and September 2021, there were 2,419 meetings.
Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is divided into eight zones and 243 wards. Each ward is a small area with between 40,000 and 50,000 people. Every five years, one person from each ward is chosen to be a corporator. There are engineers, health inspectors, and other officials in every ward whose job it is to help the people who live there.
Srinivas Alavilli, a civic activist, said that a ward committee meeting is where people from the ward can meet the corporator and all the officials who work in the ward in person to talk about local issues, keep an eye on expenses, and plan for the future.
Santosh Nargund of Janaagraha said that when it comes to ward committees, Bengaluru has stood out over the past year compared to many other cities. “They learned how important ward committees were during Covid. How it made it easier for the government to talk to the people. After Covid, they saw the value of ward committees and how senior officials make it possible for ward committees to work. So, ward committees have been working the same way for the last six months. “From the point of view of participatory democracy, it’s a big step forward,” Nargund said.
“The role of citizens in a democracy comes to life in ward committees, where they can directly take part in how the democracy works and make changes. People care more about things like the condition of the roads, water, bus stops, playgrounds, parks, and other similar things. “You can talk about these things at the meetings of the ward committee,” Nargund said.
Alavilli said that Bengaluru is the only big city in India that has ward committees. This is made possible by the “BBMP Act 2021,” which replaced the “Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act” and allows for ward committees. The Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act is the law that governs all other city corporations in Karnataka. In Bengaluru, ward committee meetings are usually held on the first Saturday of every month at 10 a.m. in the ward office.
Sandeep Anirudhan, a civic activist and the leader of the Citizens’ Agenda for Bengaluru, said, “Wherever citizen engagement is high and there is demand, ward committee meetings are happening more often. With a lot of pressure from the public, the meetings are now also happening on the first and third Saturdays of the month, as advertised. This is making a huge difference in how people interact with the government. Citizens and government workers are building a new kind of relationship based on mutual understanding and participation. Citizens feel a lot more in control now that they can question or try to change decisions about their neighbourhoods.
Anirudhan said that even before independence, cities and towns had a lot of power and autonomy. During the fight for independence, some of the best leaders were mayors of their cities, like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, and Subhash Chandra Bose. “If that’s any indication, the return of grassroots democracy will help us raise a new generation of well-informed, active citizens who will go on to become political leaders in the future,” Anirudhan said.
Janaagraha says that, on average, 388 meetings were held in BBMP wards each month during the review period of September 2022 to December 2022. During the four months that were looked at, all of the wards were able to hold at least two meetings. The most ward committee meetings ever held were 417, which was in October 2022, according to data from Janaagraha.
The highly performing zones were Dasarahalli, East, Mahadevapura, Raja Rajeshwari Nagara, South, and Yelahanka. Bommanahalli, West, on the other hand, was a partially performing zone. Janaagraha says that 132 Wards, or 57% of all Wards, have held all eight meetings in the three months that are being looked at. But only a few wards have been able to post meeting minutes regularly on the BBMP website, the report said.
Alavilli said that the data show that even though the quality isn’t good enough yet, the quantity has gotten a lot better, especially since the zonal commissioners started making sure that ward meetings happen. He said that the Chief Commissioner told zonal commissioners to check for compliance by going to ward committee meetings in their own zone.
But not every ward has a meeting of the ward committee. Bengaluru hasn’t had an elected body since the BBMP’s term ended in September 2020. The last BBMP elections were in November 2015. The BBMP has put Nodal Officers in charge of ward committee meetings when elected representatives, called Corporators, are not present. Alavilli said that the Nodal officers in some wards have not been hired or trained. Because of this, some wards don’t have their monthly ward committee meetings.
Nargund said that even though there isn’t an elected council, it’s good to know that the ward committees are still in place. “In a democracy, everyone wants a council that is chosen by the people. When there is a leader, people take responsibility and are held to account. Even though that is what we want, it is good to know that the ward committees are still meeting. Senior officials have kept the ward committees going because they know how important they are,” he said.
Nargund said that ward committees are here to stay and that the question isn’t whether there are ward committees or not. Instead, the question is how to strengthen the institution so that it can solve the civic problems that are plaguing the IT hub at the local level. “Now, there should be a set of rules, or bylaws, that spell out what the role of the ward committee is and make it official. For example, the allocation of budgets needs to be moved down to the ward level. People are aware of the problems that need to be fixed. You can do polls and make a plan for ward development. From there, we can make estimates that can be given to the BBMP, which will then decide how to divide up the money. Nargund said, “This is real decentralisation, and the ward committees are coming to life.”
