Within a week, every citizen of Bengaluru can voice his or her opinion on how the city's administration should be restructured, through an interactive web-site, as part of an unprecedented series of public consultations on the issue.
Citizens can log on and state their opinions on whether the city should be bifurcated or trifurcated, whether the existing body covering 800 sq km can continue with modifications, how the quality of life in the city can be improved, which are the areas of concern on which governance has to concentrate and so on.
The website is currently being registered.
For the full text of the report in the Economic Times, click here.
This appears to stem from Siddaramaiah's perceived need to emulate/ rival NaMo sarkar's " mygov.in ". Now, "mygov.in", like any sarkari web-site, is largely a one-way communication forum, where the sarkar wants to tom-tom its "yojana's", "achievements", etc etc - essentially a propaganda medium. There is no inter-activity whatsoever, and even if you record a suggestion on it, on as universally applauded a scheme as "Namma Railu", you'll not get an acknowledgement even. As such, claiming that these sites facilitate public consultation, is nothing short of a farce.
If the government wants genuine public consultation, all it needs to do is to come on to PRAJA, quite like Mr Manivannan had been doing when he was the BESCOM MD (check here for example), and does so once in a while even now. One may ask why PRAJA, and why not any of the many other sites. A narrative of the comparative advantages PRAJA enjoys over other known Bengaluru based sites is available here. One may draw his/ her own conclusions.
Yes, Mr Manivannan is a rare exception, and unlike him, many of the other neta's and babu's may not want to interact with the public directly on a regular basis. But, they could do it very well through their PA's or departmental PR officials, even while keeping themselves abreast of the goings on, and coming on directly selectively. That's the kind of consultation that the public is looking for today, and Bengaluru/ Karnataka is best placed to do it.
The question therefore is does Siddaramaiah avaru want to set that kind of an example for the country, or does he just want to replicate NaMo sarkar, just for the sake of it.
Muralidhar Rao
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Comments
When Govt is sitting on proposals, what these lip services can
If true intention of Govt to provide services to public, why one needs to file RTI to understand Govt intention or status of project ??
Why one needs to struggel to get what agreeent signed between Navyog - NHAI - BIAL - GOK for the Tolled highway, when govt is hiding what agreement signed between NHAI + BIAL + GOK for the Trupet flyover to Airport.
Insuch case, these services will be hyperlink directing to other sites.
Case as mentioned by Murali on Commuter Rail, Railway Board still sleeping on the proposal and GOK not willing to follow up on the project, case itself how govt refusing to give good, quality Urban Transport to Citizens.
scope goes beyond geographical re-structuring?
Committee member welcomes the suggestion
In response to my posting a link to the above comment, on a mail-group, Mr Ravichandar has responded as below:
Since you feel best done on Praja, Murali why don't you anchor the consultations there and send us a summary of what what your flock wants? We welcome those inputs. Have noted your mention of privatising tax collections and the like for starters!
Yes, certainly, I would like to do it. So, folks, do send in your comments.