The newly elected Congress government in the State is keen on splitting the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) into multiple corporations for ease of administration, multiple sources in the government confirmed to The Hindu. However, given the legal tangle that the civic polls is already in, the government is brainstorming on how to manoeuvre through this quagmire.
The government reconstituted the BBMP Restructuring Committee, led by former Chief Secretary B.S. Patil, on Monday to implement this agenda, sources said. The committee first formed during the earlier Congress tenure had in 2015 recommended splitting BBMP into multiple corporations. However, it was not implemented then as the courts forced the State government to hold civic polls immediately and there was political opposition to the move by the BJP and JD(S), who later came to power and nixed the proposal.
With Congress coming back to power with a comfortable majority, the party is keen to implement what it thinks is the best solution to fix the city’s governance deficit, a senior Congress leader said. Randeep Singh Surjewala, in charge of the party affairs in the State, chaired a meeting with Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister D.K. Shivakumar, city MLAs and members of the reconstituted committee on Monday, where a clear intent to split the civic body into multiple corporations was expressed, sources said.
