A roller coaster ride for civic infrastructure development in Bengaluru

The year gone by has been a roller-coaster ride for Bengaluru city, in terms of its civic infrastructur

The year gone by has been a roller-coaster ride for Bengaluru city, in terms of its civic infrastructure. The city saw a burst of unprecedented levels of activity months ahead of the Assembly elections in May and later entered an impasse that saw all activities coming to a standstill for five months, only to be resumed at a slow pace in the recent months. 

Former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had allocated ₹6,000 crore for the city under the Amruta Nagarothana Scheme, to be taken up over three years starting 2022-23. However, ahead of the elections, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) issued work orders worth the entire ₹6,000 crore in just a few months time, drawing the ire of many, including political opposition that cried foul over partisanship and financial indiscipline. It left the entire city dug up.

The BJP relied on this as its poll plank, which seemed to work, as the party improved its tally to 16, from 15, and it gained a 5.4% fillip in its vote share in the Assembly elections. 

However, the bubble burst after the Congress came to power. As Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar took charge as Bengaluru Development Minister, one of his first decisions was to bring all undergoing civic works to a halt. Congress has also now reallotted funds to assembly constituencies taking away funds from BJP constituencies and allotting it those represented by Congress. BJP had earlier done its converse.

The Congress government formed four Special Investigation Teams (SITs) to probe the quality of works and alleged corruption in works taken up in the city during the BJP regime. The H.N. Nagamohan Das Commission is also probing the “40% commission” allegations during the BJP regime. 

The government holding back clearing pending bills that has now ballooned to ₹3,258 crore, led to a faceoff with contractors who stopped all emergency works like preparing storm-water drains for monsoons in protest.

Including the two election months, when works came to a standstill, works resumed only by September, and more than five months had passed without any civic works being carried out in the city, a rare occurrence. Even now the government and the BBMP have only cleared a minor part of the pending bills and the contractors are not happy.