Tug-of-war between BBMP officials: Civic issues take a beating

Kumaran P | NT

Bengaluru: The implementation of various projects in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) are well begun and half done, as the proverb goes. One possible reason is the flawed delegation of work to Special Commissioners across the eight zones. These Commissioners are given an array of tasks in their respective zones, ranging from civic work to Covid-19 duties, as well as an assortment of other responsibilities like electoral work.

Recently, the Chief Commissioner of BBMP Gaurav Gupta directed all the Palike’s officials to conduct ‘Citizens Grievance Redressal meeting’ once a week in their respective zones. Special Commissioners are asked to head these meetings each week and chair the proceedings. This means officers like Dr Thrilok Chandra, who serves as the special commissioner for a zone in Bengaluru and is also special commissioner for the Health division of BBMP is stretched in all directions. He needs to maintain his zone and also remain in charge of all COVID- 19 updates across Bengaluru.

It’s not that bureaucrats are overburdened, it’s simply that duties are not properly allocated. As a result, civic issues take a beating. This is one of the reasons why no circulars and notices issued by the commissioner or any level officers just remain as an order and do not see an implementation phase. The issue with implementation of orders always takes a top-down approach wherein these special commissioners hand over the work to the Joint Commissioners in their zones, leaving it to them to delegate the tasks. At this point, the work is transferred to a lower rank officer who is on the ground. These ground officers usually lack the human resources power to implement the work.

This way, the tug-of-war of the umpteen number of joint commissioners and other officers with elected representatives like the corporators in the ward is another mess. Adding to this hurdle is the absence of elected new corporators has left a void in handling the projects.