It was meant to be a consultation between two primary civic agencies
of Bengaluru about the future of the city. But of the 198 councillors,
less than 20 attended the discussion on the Draft Revised Master Plan –
2031 during the council meeting of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara
Palike (BBMP) on Wednesday.

The councillors not only cut short the
presentation on the draft RMP by Bangalore Development Authority (BDA)
officials, they also started complaining about things unrelated to the
plan.

They accused the BDA of collecting development tax, keeping
corner and CA sites and then handing over the layouts to the BBMP
without developing infrastructure. “If Bengaluru is a banana, BDA is the
fruit and BBMP is the discarded peel,” said Padmanabha Reddy, Leader of
the Opposition in the council. He also alleged that he was not provided
a copy of the draft plan which made it impossible for him to
participate in the discussion, though the plan is available on the BDA
website.

BDA authorities were criticised for presenting the draft
plan to the BBMP council after it was prepared. “The BDA must have
consulted the council during the drafting of the plan. It will never get
the ground-level inputs like we do, and consultation with the BBMP
council is mandatory,” said Mr. Reddy.

The rest of the debate
mostly centred on councillors seeking clarifications from the BDA on
changes to floor-area ratio (FAR) and related road width norms; how
there was no land allotted for car parking; and how the BDA should take
over widening of roads in the city.

The derailment of the
discussion left citizens unimpressed. N.S. Mukunda of the Citizen Action
Forum said Wednesday’s BBMP council meeting was symptomatic of the
disease. “None of those governing us knows the intricacies of governing a
mega city like Bengaluru. Let alone the BBMP, many in the BDA also do
not know the importance and impact of the master plan for the city,” he
said.