The Greater Bengaluru Governance Bill 2024 — Hits and Misses
8 August 2024 
In 2014, the Government of Karnataka constituted the BBMP Restructuring Committee, which was later renamed the Brand Bengaluru Committee (BBC) in 2024. The BBC was tasked with the crucial responsibility of designing a new and modern governance structure for Bengaluru to retain its preeminent position. Accordingly, the Committee has prepared a draft bill which has many forward-looking elements. However, the Greater Bengaluru Governance (GBG) Bill, which was tabled in the Karnataka legislative assembly on 23 July 2024, does not incorporate many progressive aspects of governance which are necessary for building a vibrant, modern Bengaluru in the 21st century.
Janaagraha has undertaken an in-depth comparative analysis of the GBG Bill and the BBC-GBG Bill based on the City-Systems framework of Janaagraha. This framework is the basis for Janaagraha’s flagship study, the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS). The detailed analysis is available in the annexed document. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Act (BBMP), 2020, which is currently in force, and the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (KMC) Act, 1976 have also been considered in the comparative study.
The study evaluates the four Bills/Acts along 33 parameters, scoring them on a scale of 0 to 10. The higher the score, the better the performance of the Bill/Acts.
The GBG Bill scores poorly across all four city-systems components including urban planning and design, urban capacities and resources, empowered and legitimate political representation, and transparency, accountability, and civic participation. Overall, the GBG Bill scored a dismal 3.35 out of 10. The study revealed that the GBG Bill is less than half as effective as the BBC-GBG Bill.
Janaagraha’s analysis identifies key misses in the GBG Bill and suggests several crucial areas for improvement. It is to be noted that although the Brand Bengaluru Committee made several progressive recommendations, there are many more steps that must be considered to design a robust governance structure for a futuristic Bengaluru.
Speaking about the Bill, Srikanth Viswanathan, CEO, Janaagraha, said: “Bengaluru is a significant contributor to the national economy. The city deserves a modern and innovative governance model to be able to continue on its robust path of growth. Bengalureans deserve a much better quality of life, on par with that of international cities. The expectation that the GBG Bill will usher in a progressive governance model, which could facilitate significant improvement in different aspects of people’s lives, has been betrayed with the tabling of a very limiting bill. It is also disappointing to note that the government has chosen to ignore many of the desirable recommendations of the Brand Bengaluru Committee. Through this study, we have drawn attention to some key areas that need attention and decisive action from the government.”
Santosh Nargund, Head – Participatory Governance, Janaagraha, added that, “The people of Bengaluru have great hopes from the Bengaluru restructuring effort. There’s palpable optimism that it ought to make significant improvement in their day-to-day lives through better planning, improved coordination between civic agencies, responsive civic authorities, and more professional governance. But the GBG Bill tabled in the assembly is quite disappointing. Yet, all may not be lost. Now that the Bill is referred to the House Committee, the government must give wide publicity to the Bill and invite citizens, urban experts, and civil society organisations alike to actively contribute to improving the Bill, before adopting the same. In the larger public interest, it is very important for the government to treat this exercise as a collaborative initiative and not as a unilateral political move.”
VR Vachana, Head – Municipal Law and Policy, Janaagraha, said “While Bengaluru currently has a city-specific municipal legislation, it does not address metropolitan governance as the legislation governs a part of the city based on municipal boundaries. For Bengaluru to be able to deliver a good quality of life to its citizens, it needs to have legislation that caters to the 21st century opportunities and challenges. The government’s decision to relook at the legislation governing Bengaluru offers a great opportunity to ensure integrated and coordinated governance of the city as well as the opportunity to create a metropolitan governance model that can be emulated by other states in India. Our assessment of the GBG Bill, 2024 aims to draw attention towards critical aspects across planning and capacities, and decentralised and participatory governance that should be strengthened to create a new law governing Bengaluru.”