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Can we move to make Bangalore either autonomous or as Union Territories

I am grateful to Tarle for inspiring me to write this. Some ex-CMs in the past did express their desire to transform Bangalore into a Singapore. What made Singapore what it is today, a role model for all cities and countries? It got its freedom around the same time as India and at that time it was poorer than us. It had two very great advantages - Being a City State, it was small ("Small Is Beautiful") and much easier to manage. It was ruled by a benevolent despot who had great vision, sense, commitment and integrity and there was very little politicking due to there being Lee. Perhaps, the second factor, benevolent despots might not happen here, but the first - small size can definitely be created - in the form of Union Territories or City States or autonomous. They will have to cease to be State Capitals and ideally speaking, they must be run like an efficient corporate, may be like Infosys whose campus competes with Singapore in the way it is planned and maintained. We have seen this actually happening - how small is more efficient - in our Union Territories - Goa, Pondicherry, Delhi with their low taxes, so low that people from other States used to flock to these areas when buying vehicles, etc. Are there other reasons why Union Territories are better than State Governments? How could they manage with lower taxes? Was the central govt. subsidising the deficit or were these UTs had less expenditure?

City.Zen's picture

Make all major cities and metros autonomous or UTs

Why should major cities and metros also function as State Capitals is a question crying for an answer. We have Kerala as an exception with Cochin being bigger than the State Capital of Trivandrum. SM Krishna and N Chandrababu Naidu both lost in getting back their party installed in govt. in their States mainly because they gave too much importance to the State Capital at the cost of ignoring rural problems. So, what will happen if we make Hassan the State Capital and shift all govt. offices, ministries to the new Capital? Will it be another Tughlaqan move? ( By the by, while popular opinion holds Tughlaq as insane, there is also a school of thought that holds that he was very intelligent and far ahead of his times). One consequence of this will definitely benefit Bangalore. Rid of the politicians and people flocking from all over the State to meet them, Bangalore will definitely change for the better and much faster. City Zen
City Zen
silkboard's picture

UT or city-state? Or, more powers to local govt

Any structure would do, the key is - one person or body should have the authority to make all developmental decisions about the city. We need this badly, or else, our cities can't be Singapore London or whatever we want them to be. Just wrote another post with similar thoughts in mind.

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