Issue 3 | 2 Dec. 2006

No clarity on Greater B'lore, says Citizens Forum

What is the rationale behind the formation of Greater Bangalore? How will it benefit people living in the urban and rural areas? The Citizens Action Forum for Greater Bangalore posed these questions to the state government asking it to first clarify these, before seeking opinions from the public on the formation of Greater Bangalore.

Forum Co-ordinator VK Somashekar said there was no clarity on the government’s move and said the people would be better able to respond if they knew how it would affect or change the quality of their life. He appealed to the Chief Minister to give more time to the public to give their suggestions and extend the deadline (Dec 2) for the same. The forum was collecting feedback from 120 residents welfare associations in this regard, besides several NGOs.

He also condemned the Government’s move to collect opinions of various agencies like BDA, BMRDA, BMP, BMTC and said this had created confusion in the minds of the public. As it is, there was no proper co-ordination between the civic agencies and so their individual opinions too would be at variance from each other. The government should instead have a single agency to collect the feedback, he said.  He stressed that the Forum was not against Greater Bangalore.

Somashekar, who is also the managing trustee of Grahak Shakti, a residents’ welfare forum, said a blog – http://caf-bb.blog-spot.com - has been created to enable the public to send their suggestions on Greater Bangalore. He said an e-petition will also be filed to draw the chief minister’s attention.

Citizens can also mail their feedback to citizenactionforum@gmail and citizebactionforum@google-groups.com or post their suggestions to No. 31/1, I floor, MK Puttalingaiah Road, Padmanabhnagar, Ph 26699085/30623722.

A workshop will be held on the formation of Greater Bangalore on Dec 10 which will be attended by officials from BDA, BMRDA, BMTC, BWSSB, etc.