By Zahid H Javali
In the last one year, a mere 2% of money was spent on BBMP works in Koramangala. Out of the Rs 85 crore allocated for 102 approved projects, only 3 were executed for Rs 0.24 crore. Almost Rs 20 lakh was apparently spent on setting up a temporary control room during the monsoon relief measures in 2019. Besides, Rs 4 lakh went into maintaining the BBMP building and another Rs 3 lakh for the upkeep of the burial ground in the neighbourhood. The big ticket projects that never got off the ground including a Rs 27 crore plan to improve Venkatapura Main Road and service road. Another Rs 10.5 crore was allocated for the comprehensive development and improvements of roads in the ward. Similarly, Rs 10.1 crore was allocated but never used to asphalt roads and lay the pavement tiles in the ward.
215 out of 448 projects “executed” in 5 years
In the last five years, the record was better, but still dismal. Out of the 215 crore allocated for 448 approved projects, only 162 projects were “executed” for Rs 72 crore. That’s about 65% of money that was never utilised. Why do the approved projects never get done? Observers argue that this could be for many reasons. The projects never had a feasible detailed project report, or there were complications or violations of some kind. Another major possibility is that the approved projects never get the money that was promised due to lack of funds. “The original budget of the BBMP is always unrealistic,” says CIVIC Bangalore’s executive trustee Kathyayini Chamaraj. “The projects take off as and when the money comes into the kitty. When Yediyurappa became CM, the money allotted to Congress wards was taken away and transferred to the BJP wards. Besides, some tenders never get approved as contractors refuse to work due to pending bills. In Shanthinagar for example, the corporator is always complaining that no contractor wants to come forward and take up any work due to this.” Agrees Nitin Seshadri, former secretary, Koramangala 3rd Block Residents Welfare Association: “Money is frequently allocated that way through budgets. Even for multi-year projects, money is allocated in this manner every year. BBMP budgeting and processes are a total mess.”
Citizen portal to usher in transparency
Nailing the BBMP officials is difficult unless you have hard data to substantiate it. Now, you can. The Bengaluru Navanirmana Party (BNP) has launched a citizen portal that gives you ward-wise works of the last five years. Armed with this information, the residents and civic activists can confront the civic agency and the local netas on why the work was not done due to any number of reasons. Not only will this sort of ‘social audit’ usher in transparency but also accountability in the way BBMP does its work. But is this data authentic? “Yes, it is sourced from the largely unusable BBMP portal,” says Lalithamba BV, HSR Layout resident and BNP core member. “It took almost 20 people to work for a month to collate all the data from the civic agency’s website.”
Lack of progress on ground
Civic activists blame the lack of progress on ground for the dismal state of affairs. Another reason is the weak composition of ward committees filled with political cronies appointed by the corporator. This goes against the KMC Act, according to Chamaraj. She has written a letter to chief minister BS Yediyurappa to let the BBMP Commissioner directly appoint the Ward Committee members instead of delegating it to the corporators as this method goes against the provisions of the KMC Act.
KRIDL’s shoddy work and blacklisting to be blamed too
The disreputable government agency Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Limited (KRIDL), which was previously called the Karnataka Land Army Corporation, is partly to blame. After the Karnataka High Court paused all projects taken by KRIDL early this year, such contentious projects were halted. In the Koramangala ward, nearly 26% of the money in the last five years went to this corrupt agency. For over a decade, this agency was being used and abused by the elected representatives to usurp taxpayers’ money. This way of awarding civic works to KRIDL is in violation of Section 4(g) of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements Act, which allows for work to be carried out without calling for a tender. Only essential and emergency works are to be carried out by KRIDL, but all sorts of routine works were being handed over to KRIDL. “As there is no tendering process, you can take 100% of the money without even starting the work,” says Congress spokesperson Kavitha Reddy. “If these works go through the BBMP, a tender is called for any project above Rs 1 lakh. A proper vigilance committee goes over the project plan and technically evaluates it. Ofcourse, there is corruption here as well, but it’s still better than KRIDL which does it without any supervision or transparency.” Ironically, every party is guilty of using KRIDL for their devious ends. It was Congress and JD(S) earlier, and BJP now. The irony of this approach is that KRIDL sub contracts the work to the same contractors who work for the civic agencies. What’s more, it charges 20% more than the tender amount, and the result is either a shoddy job or worse, no job at all. In 2010 and 2018, KRIDL was blacklisted for shoddy work. Civic experts questioned this practice in 2013 too.
What can citizens do about this?
With the term of the corporators having ended on September 10, they can only blame the politicians for their inefficiency, and ensure that such elected representatives are not re-elected for their shoddy performance. Besides, this issue should be taken up more seriously at all the ward committee meetings by active citizens and the resident welfare associations. All those who owe any kind of political allegiance to the corporator or MLA should be unceremoniously thrown out or their voices muted at such hearings.
Here are some of the executed and unexecuted works in Koramangala in 2019-20.
List of “executed” works of BBMP in 2019-2020
List of unexecuted projects by BBMP in Koramangala in 2019-20. All data courtesy: BNP Portal
