After the residents went to court asking the BBMP to set up a ward committee, the civic body followed the court orders. They sought refuge in the local corporator who inducted his own contacts. When the citizens protested against this nepotism, the BBMP Commissioner said the residents can send in their applications and he will personally see to it that they get a berth.
However, when the ward committees were finalised, none of the 500 applicants from across Bangalore found their names on the list. Such is the state of affairs in Bangalore. Thankfully, HSR Layout is slightly better off. One can spot civic activists like Padmashree, Chitra and Dr Shanthi Tummala on the 12-member list and we know the work they have done towards garbage segregation, plastic ban, composting and so on. But the rest of the list appears to be bogus at first glance.
FAKE DESIGNATIONS
Lets begin with the representatives from resident welfare associations (RWAs). The names on the list are complete unknowns and their designations don’t even exist. You only have presidents not chairmans at RWAs. The president of Sector 6 RWA was Raje Urs last year and not Venugopal Reddy. In fact, there has been no such name holding any core committee level position in the history of Sector 6 RWA. We have got this confirmed from both the past president of Sector 6 RWA Raje Urs and the current secretary Deshmukh.
Such is the level of misrepresentation in this list cooked up by the BBMP under the misguidance of corporator Gurumurthy Reddy. Similarly, in Sector 1, the president has been Jayaram Reddy, but the list shows Govindaswamy as its chairman when there is no such position in the first place. Similarly Jayaram Reddy has confirmed that Govindaswamy was never the president or secretary of the association. “The committee met only once to send this list to the BBMP, it’s all bogus,” said Jayaram Reddy to Residents Watch. “The list was made only to follow the court’s orders. There’s no other purpose to it. I will talk to the Federation about this misrepresentation.”
Corporator Gurumurthy Reddy claimed that he had conducted “2-3” meetings in the last one year. Even if this were true, it clearly highlights the sham. “We will call you for the next meeting,” he told us. When pressed on the charge that there are bogus names on the list, he only said, “Is it so?”
When we spoke to BNR Reddy, the chairman of the Federation of HSR Layout Residents Welfare Association, he was even more categorical: “The corporator did not consult the associations while drafting people into the committee. This is all his handiwork.”
BOGUS LOT?
Both civic activists and resident association members are not even aware of the other names on the list. We can only conclude that they are just dummy candidates to abide by the court order. When there are so many civic activists in HSR Layout, why pick complete unknowns? Or do these people even exist? Do we have their Aadhaar IDs, so we can cross check? We urge BBMP Commissioner Manjunatha Prasad to take cognisance of this and weed out the falsehood reflected in this list not just in HSR but across Bangalore.
Without further ado, here is the list of people who are part of the Ward Committee for HSR Layout. No real meetings have happened so far. And most of the names don’t even ring a bell. Such is the sham in the ward committee list. Should the courts intervene again to whet the lists now and ensure regular meetings are held? In all likelihood, it appears to look that way!
