A revamp of urban government is long overdue in India. Our country’s freedom fighters led a long struggle for ‘Swaraj’, ie., ‘self-rule’. But grassroots governance as a concept has eluded entire generations since independence due to the centralised nature of government in the country.Cities and towns have, in administrative terms, remained colonies of their respective state governments, giving the residents of the cities little to no say in the way they are governed. Citizens have been forced to remain mere bystanders, as they watch their dear cities degenerate into polluted, congested and unhealthy sprawls.While the 73rd constitutional amendment, ie., the Panchayati Raj Act has ushered in local governance in rural areas, the 74th Constitutional Amendment, enacted as an afterthought for urban local governance, has not had any traction even after three decades.The resulting disconnect between the cities and its residents have reduced the latter’s relationship with the city to that of a mere bystander, instead of a responsible citizen who has an equal part in shaping the destiny of their city.Why a BBMP Bill?Bengaluru is now governed under existing state legislation, the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (KMC) Act, 1976, through which most towns and cities of Karnataka are governed.In March this year, the Karnataka government introduced the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Bill in the state legislature as a fresh, stand-alone legislation for Bengaluru’s governance. Facing wide-ranging objections, the Bill was referred to a joint select committee to hold consultations to improve it, but the noises emanating from the committee are only about how long the mayor’s term ought to be and how many wards the city should have.Are these really the key issues, or are there more fundamental questions to address?A quick reading of the Bill shows that by and large, it is just a replica of the KMC Act with minor changes, but nothing transformative in the works. Is this enough for Bengaluru or for that matter for any urban habitat? Also, there are questions being asked as to why desirable amendments couldn’t be made to the KMC act or the 74th amendment which then would benefit a large number of cities and towns of the state and the country. Don’t all other cities and towns face similar challenges, don’t they deserve the same attention?Is the introduction of a standalone Bill for Bengaluru due to a lack of will to reform across the board? Or is it an attempt to establish a model Bill that could be replicated elsewhere? These questions are not answered.How is the fate of this Bill relevant to the country?India’s urban population is expected to more than double by 2050, and even exceed the rural population. At the same time, cities across India are poorly managed, already on the verge of collapse. It is unlikely they can bear this rapid growth. Which is why the BBMP Bill assumes great significance.Will it really solve the woes of Bengaluru and set a model example of a city government Bill? Or is it designed to fail, missing a great opportunity for change, both for Bengaluru and for all cities in India?Why does Bengaluru require a new law to be empowered?The Bruhath Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the urban local body with a grandiose sounding name, is in actuality a nominal body with no serious legislative, planning, or administrative powers.The demand for such a new law is driven by the premise that the present governance paradigm fails on many levels. It is a reaction to the tragic consequences of misgovernance that citizens face today such as:◼ Pollution and degeneration of our natural habitat◼ Reduction of our green cover from a healthy 70% to just 3% in just 5 decades; runaway unplanned development has turned the once beautiful ‘garden city’ into a ‘concrete desert’,◼ Lack of stewardship and environmental responsibility that has reduced what was once a ‘city of thousand life-giving lakes’ to one with a few large septic tanks that are best avoided◼ Lack of holistic and sustainable urban planning, resulting in faulty public infrastructure, overpopulation, crowding and congestion, cramping the quality of life of all residents.What are some of the city’s historic shortcomings?1) Lack of an aspirational vision: Our constitution and it’s directive principles spell out a vision for what kind of a nation we need to build. But, do we ever hear of what our city is envisioned to be? Do we build a healthy city? A sustainable city? A green city? A happy city? An inclusive city? No, we don’t.Luckily for Kempe Gowda, the founder of Bengaluru, his mother gave him that vision in just one line: “Keregalam kattu, marangalam nedu“, ie., “Build lakes, plant trees”. The reason we are here today is thanks to his mother’s vision. But in modern times, our lack of vision has destroyed the beautiful city our predecessors imagined and built for us.2) Lack of understanding: Governance is the art of the practical. A city has limits, and it has huge impact. By not acknowledging them, we’ve set ourselves up for failure. The city originally evolved organically to perform various functions and allow informal interactions between people and livelihoods. Traditional methods and wisdom safeguarded the ecological services of the environment, in fact improved them.However, the modern top down approach to development has ensured that the processes and knowledge that defined and evolved this city are ignored, be they economic, social, geographical, cultural, or traditional. Real life features such as informal markets, street vending, footpaths, urban forests, community spaces, commons, ponds and lakes are destroyed, while characterless infrastructure and concrete replace them, leading to eternal conflicts. Sustainable watershed management has given way to importing water from far away rivers, and traditional tree planting has given way to destruction of green cover.3) Jurisdiction and manageability: As a city grows, it impacts the entire district. However, we have had a short-sighted practice of setting city limits around the core populated areas, and leaving the rest of the district to the district administration, resulting in different jurisdictions and laws in the same district. For eg, in Bengaluru, we have the Greater Bangalore metropolitan area under BBMP, then the Bengaluru Urban District and the Bengaluru Rural districts under the district administration. There are disparities in laws, and quality of administration varies. Also, the expected periodic expansion of city limits leads to speculative investments just across the city limits leading to unplanned development and urban sprawl, putting serious pressure on those areas as well as creating congestion in the city. Even wards are so badly delimited, the only parameter taken being population, ignoring geography, watershed, manageability, etc.,4) Lack of planning: The 74th amendment prescribes that a Metropolitan Planning Committee duly constituted with people’s representation, which consolidates ground-up planning by area sabhas and ward planning committees, generate the Masterplan for the city. But the State Govt has been appointing parastatal agencies like BDA to create the Masterplan, which is illegal.The bigger challenge is resolving the disconnect between the planning authority and the executive. Even worse, there is no capacity building – there are no urban planners or transport planners employed by the city govt or any agency that plans for the city; as a result, every intervention in the city is on a project oriented approach, which breaks down the functionality of the city, that has evolved over centuries. At one level this leads to mindless projects, and at another level, it leads to the collapse of entire systems, such as the rajakaluve-lake system which supported the water security of the city for centuries.The lack of an integrated, holistic masterplan, and a transport plan that is part of the masterplan, sees the city administration and state govt resort to ad-hoc projects that do not solve any problem systemically. This leaves the field open to vested interests to interfere and influence the city through dubious consultants, lobbies and infrastructure peddlers, in the garb of NGOs. The city is also at the mercy of the infamous consultant-contractor-politician-vendor nexus.Solutions are imposed on the city to benefit some business, it’s normally the case of a solution finding a problem. Examples are the expensive Metro project, which is ill-planned, and mirrors the existing rail network which could have easily been upgraded to a Suburban Rail system at negligible cost, whereas the metro spent 400 times the money and literally destroyed the garden city with its ugly bridge and destruction of trees and buildings.Much more madness was avoided thanks to heightened civic activism, for eg., the hare-brained projects such as Steel Bridge, Elevated corridors and Taxi Pod projects, which citizens thankfully protested against and stopped. The city keeps becoming more and more dysfunctional, and excludes rather than include all of its population, disempowering various segments, particularly vulnerable, poor, aged, sick, women and children.5) Lack of legislative and executive powers: The BBMP at present is only an executor of laws created by the state legislature and in a very limited domain. It has absolutely no powers to legislate on the myriad issues that play out in its jurisdiction. It is a paper tiger that even the political class also does not take seriously.6) Lack of citizen engagement: Citizens are neither engaged not consulted in any decision that affects their lives directly, be it land use planning, control over commons, decisions that affect the ecology, or policy decisions that impact the city in every way. This has disconnected citizens to a point where they live a parasitic existence in the city. The non-involvement of public in decision-making also reduces oversight, resulting in rampant corruption and poor decision-making.7) Bengaluru is a parastatal jungle: Let’s face it, Bengaluru’s governance is a total mess, due to the multiplicity of agencies, that do not even talk to each other. The state govt keeps intervening in the city either through its various depts., or by creating parastatals like BDA, BMRDA, BWSSB, KRDCL, BESCOM, BMTC, DULT, BMRCL, etc, to carry out projects / provide services, overlapping and undermining the city govt. Effectively, this has translated into multiple governments; the local govt has no primacy over the city, and no control over how the city is managed. Information exists in islands, often replicated or conflicting.8) Outdated methods: As one of the IT capitals of the world, it is shameful that the power of GIS mapping and modelling and various other software planning tools are not utilised for planning this city. There is no unified information system accessible to all arms of govt or to citizens, leading to mismanagement, replication and very often conflicts. While there is a huge wealth of knowledge among citizens, the Govt does not leverage this to improve governance.How this Bill can really matterThe big question: Will the new BBMP Bill attempt to solve all these issues listed above? If not, it’s just another wasteful exercise. How can the government do things differently? As we are all aware, time is running out, the city is crumbling; urgent reforms are required. Now is the moment, the Karnataka government needs to take the bull by its horns. Else, it will be a missed opportunity that it shall never be forgiven for.Here are a few recommendations:1) Any legislation has to respond to the challenges of its times. We are going through a critical time, facing global and local challenges, such as the Climate Emergency, pandemics, deforestation, degeneration, pollution, water security, liveability, and widespread health challenges. The BBMP bill has to re-imagine the idea of a city government and reposition the BBMP as the steward of the city, one that is tasked with the sustainability and regeneration of the city. Nothing less is acceptable.2) A green agenda should not just be part of, but should form the core of any urban governance bill. An ‘Ecology plan’ should form the basis of the ‘Master plan’ for the city, with a strong emphasis on ‘localization’ and ‘community engagement’, especially for water and waste management, food security, energy, mobility, land use, etc., It should include a directive for capacity building through employment of ecologists, urban planners and transport planners in every department, to ensure sustainable planning and development.3) Define limits to growth: A clear outer limit needs to be set on the growth of the city. Establish laws that do not allow growth beyond the ‘bio-limit’ of the city’s geography. Establish a framework of development that is within sustainable parameters, based on local resources and ecology.4) Responsibility: A metropolis has impact way beyond its boundaries; it affects life and environment for thousands of Kilometres, due to its hunger for energy and resources. Hence, it has a responsibility towards the world. Laws must be instituted to penalize the import of resources and incentivize the use of local renewable resources, to encourage sustainable living, and to limit carbon footprint.5) SWARAJ and Decolonisation Agenda: Devolution of powers to Local Govt needs to be complete. In all matters related to planning, legislation, execution, and administration of the city, the sole power should be BBMP, they include vital functions such as law and order, mobility/transport, essential public services, social development, community building, education, health, power, water, food security, environment, etc., And the state govt needs to be taken out of the equation.Nomenclature, positions and power structures that were inherited from a centralised colonial administration and thinking need to be dismantled. Control over the commons need to be returned to the communities. True decentralisation needs to percolate to the lowest levels with elected members in area sabhas, wards committees, etc., and the BBMP council should transform into a city republic. Local wards and area sabhas not only should have real powers, but also responsibilities to steward and manage local ecological services and resources.Citizen engagement should be an essential part of decision making – public consultation should be mandatory for all legislations and projects.6) Remove conflicts: Merge all parastatal agencies with the BBMP to streamline administration. Restrict State agencies and departments from city administration and from planning and executing projects for the city.7) Public Information and data access: Unify all databases and geographical and spatial information maps infrastructure. Open source them, and have them in the public domain to ensure transparency and to inculcate public ownership. Use latest tools for GIS maps and solution modelling and planning.8) Holistic jurisdiction: it would be wise for the bill to address the entire district of Bengaluru under one law, to avoid the tangled mess of multiple jurisdictions, and to allow for holistic planning of the district, applying ecological principles, and establishing distinct urban zones, and green zones, rural zones, etc., with specific restraints, to prevent urban sprawls, and unplanned growth.9) The Planning Imperative: A fresh new way of planning needs to be prioritised, that treats the city as a living entity. Planning should follow life and processes of the community, instead of imposing on it. Local traditional wisdom that ensured resilience for thousands of years, should be re-adopted, infusing life back into the concretised landscape. The organic growth of the city and its surroundings, as a city of villages, needs to be honored, and leveraged as a framework. Each village/ward needs its own planning zones and resilience, defined by its own planning committees. Capacity building to undertake this in terms of education and awareness generation should be the priority of the BBMP.10) Unschooling of Democracy: This is potentially the most important role of the BBMP, ie., fostering democratic learning and culture among citizens.The Area sabhas and ward committees are the nearest arm of real governance for a citizen, to both engage and shape a community’s future. This is where citizens can cut their teeth in democratic participation, and those publicly inclined can progress further in politics with a sound foundation. Hence, formation of ward committees and Area sabhas need to be democratic exercises — the members of these committees need to be elected, instead of being nominated.This would provide opportunities to novices to obtain experience in the real dynamics of public representation, and inculcate the spirit of democratic traditions among both members and citizens at grassroots; the BBMP would thus function as an incubator for democracy, and provide fertile breeding grounds for well equipped future leaders! Committee members and councillors are the future mayors, MLAs, MPs and Prime Ministers of the nation.If we lack quality politicians at the state and national level today, it is the price we have paid for not empowering the foundation of our democracy – ‘local government’. Which brings us to our last point.10) The mayor’s term and the number of wards: By now it is obvious that these are the least difficult of all the questions. The answers to these are rather simple: Yes, we require a full-term mayor.And wards have to be of manageable size, smaller the better. Converting the de-facto old village boundary to ward boundary might be the simplest and most effective solution. There should be no limit to the total number of wards.Sandeep Anirudhan is the Founder, Citizens Agenda for Bengaluru.