In the backdrop of the forthcoming elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the Civic Society Forum has presented ‘Manifesto for BBMP elections 2022’ and asked political party leaders to incorporate it in their election manifestos while seeking public mandate to govern the city.
The prominent features of the manifesto are bringing in more democratic and citizen participation in urban governance, making metropolitan planning committee a functional body, setting up of area sabhas for monitoring works and conducting social audits at the level polling booth area, among others.
They also said representatives to the sabhas should be selected by the votes, and suggested doing away with the political nominees in the ward committees.
On Friday, the forum held an interaction with leaders of various parties. The president of Janata Dal(S) C.M. Ibrahim, former Minister and Congress leader Ramalinga Reddy, Bharatiya Janatha Party leader and Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan, Communist Party of India (M)’s Prakash K., Aam Aadmi Party leader Prithvi Reddy, Srikanth Narasimhan from Bengaluru Navanirmana Party, and C.N. Deepak from Karnataka Rashtra Samithi Paksha were present.
The forum has demanded that 40% of the city budget should be made available for the ward committees to utilise as per their priorities and needs.
On land and housing issues, the forum has advocated for creation of land banks from the acquisition of encroached lands. These land should be made available for landless, slum-dwellers, SCs/STs, and to build infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, anganwadis, and others.
On urban transport system, the forum has demanded that political parties make commuting affordable and reliable. It has asked the parties to treat the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) as a service-oriented institution.
