vmenon's blog

slightly long post ..excuse me!

dear all,

not sure how many are aware that the UDD has broadcast rules for the new akrama sakrama regularisation bill ( as attached).

objections need to be filed before end of jan.

in  a nutshell over an dbaove building law violations( far and setbacks) zonal and land use violations are also to be regularised.

Dear  all, attaching a couple of recent files on UID:

• a) A "skeptical note" on UID by a Prof ramkumar( form tata institute of social sciences)
• b) Minutes of meeting with NGOs /CSOs organised by UID this month.

In other civic forums , the UID debate has gone to the level  of "stop UID" campiagns.

The anti UID lobby (currently in the civic space there seems to be more of them or at least more vocal) has a few broad areas of concern and pehaps rightly so

dear all,

Its time to start redefining in our own minds, on who is responsible for what after the BBMP elections.

In the vacuum these last few years, MLAs’ filed the space for citizen grieviences.The BBMP engineers started to come directly under them. Task forces were set up to almost run the city. The parstatals (BDA, BWSSB etc) became more a law unto themselves. (The elections themselves will not change the parastals; a governance bill is required for that) .And citizen direct invovelement, even thro a badly run and set up ward committee disappeared (Again a governance reform issue).

First thing, is to realize that a MLA’s job is to provide and monitor the laws and rules of the State. He should have nothing to do with how or where a road is built in a ward.

The councilor is responsible for ward priorities and resource allocations, through direct interaction with citizens or ward committees. He has nothing to do with the engineering aspects or the actual commercial tendering decisions.

Some of them have moral and positional oversight over others, but not direct interference in the others jurisdiction.

I believe that the Abide process is a step in the right direction. I have gone through, right from the start, the documents on the web.

In the "unlocking bangalore" debate I come from 2 or 3 contexts.

a) I believe there is at least 30% capacity on our roads which are wasted by non adherence and non implementation of the law( both traffic laws and a myriad of civic laws )

b) I believe that of the various enforcers/government bodies out there ,the traffic police is one of the better ones , but who are are always at the worst end of the stick, tremendously underresourced and unempowered.