Has GBA made visible improvements to the city?

Bengaluru

A month ago, the Greater Bengaluru Authority came into being. In an early meeting, Tushar Giri Nath, Additional Chief Secretary, Urban Development Department gave several directions to newly minted GBA officials, one of which was that “visible improvements must be made to reflect the administrative changes introduced through the GBA.”

Thirty days later, after much work and settling into the new structure, has the GBA’s new administrative structures shown  citizens that things are improving? “No, nothing has changed.” Said Shazamani, a resident of BTM Layout said. “It’s the same bad roads with potholes, same garbage problems. I don’t see any visible changes.”

Indeed many people are unaware of the administrative changes that have taken place and when informed of the change, they do not see any improvements affecting them. Humera Azeez, whose home falls under the South City Corporation limits says that nothing has changed for her, “There is a road that was being white-topped and work has been going on since BBMP was the authority. It had been going on for several months before that as well. 

There is no change in its progress.” She said. It would seem that, for the general public, there has been little that is visibly and experientially different from a month ago. Natraj, an economics student who lives within the North City Corporation limits has seen that there are new signals which are functioning well and managing traffic efficiently, “Now I see that ambulances don’t seem to wait for too long before the signal changes to let them through. But as far as potholes and garbage, it’s mostly the same. 

There is some patch work I see and there is less garbage on the main roads. But on the inside roads, there is still a lot of garbage lying around.”
However, some people who have interacted with the GBA officials are more positive. Padmashree, a social worker who has worked with the city authorities in waste management heaped praise on the current officials.

She said, “I have seen many positive changes. I have also never seen such enthusiasm and willingness to improve the city on the part of the authorities before. I think Maheshwar Rao is the best person to be in that position of chief, GBA. Rajendra Cholan and he have been on the dot until now. Even the south city commissioner has been very open to innovative ideas in waste management.”