GOODBYE MAYOR ANOTHER MAYOR TO DEPART WITH ZERO ACHIEVEMENTS

By Firoz.T.Totanawala

The Bangalore Metro Reporter

15th April 2011 issue-

                                           

                                           GOODBYE MAYOR

ANOTHER MAYOR TO DEPART WITH ZERO ACHIEVEMENTS

S.K Nataraj is completing his term of one year as Mayor of BBMP and from next month we will have a new Mayor for our city. Well then, its time to assess the achievement of S.K.Nataraj as the first Mayor of the newly formed BBMP. And sadly, his only achievement is being the first Mayor of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, nothing more and nothing less.

 The BBMP Commissioner Mr. Siddaiah’s revelations are sufficient enough to sum up the achievements of Mayor. The BBMP Commissioner had recently revealed that the BBMP’s financial position is on the verge of collapse and that there is no money in BBMP coffers.

The BBMP owes 3500 crores to the contractors. It has to repay more than 3000 crores loan and is paying around 300 crores as interest. The 1000 plus crores collected as property tax is peanuts compared to the size of the BBMP which has 750 sq kms area with 200 wards. The other taxes do not account for more than 15% of the BBMP’s revenue. BBMP perhaps does not have corporators and bureaucrats, who can think of ingenious and novel ideas to raise revenue and make it self reliant so that BBMP does not go to the Government begging for grant. In this aspect the Mayor S. K. Nataraj is an utter flop.

Of course, the Mayor could not have done anything more under the present situation. The budget tabled by the Mayor through the Chairman of the Finance committee, was the most unrealistic one. While the annual revenue of the BBMP is not more than 1500 crores, the budget tabled and passed was for more than 8800 crores. The BBMP expected the Government to release a grant of 1300 crores, but, the Government released only 300 crores.

As the Mayor, that is the first citizen of Bangalore, S.K.Nataraj should have provided a dynamic leadership with far sight to the BBMP, but could not do so, of course due to many factors. In fact, there was not much S. K. Nataraj could do in BBMP. For the first month, he was busy attending felicitation functions followed by selection of the Chairman and Members of the various Standing Committees. As the aspirants were too many, the number of Standing Committees was also increased to 12 and few days later, the Mayor was busy preparing the budget. All these took almost five months of the Mayors tenure.

The Budget part of BBMP was indeed the most irrational thing which clearly signified that no body including the Mayor showed interest in presenting a pragmatic budget. The budget prepared and approved by the Administrator before the Mayor rule, had put the figure at 4000 crores. But two months later, the elected body raised it to 8800 crores without considering the basics. The budget unrealistically put expected figures of Rs. 750 crores from Akrama-Sakrama scheme and 1300 crores from Government as special grants.

Even if these figures were to materialize, the BBMP would have 1500 crores from its own sources and 2000 crores from Akrama-Sakrama and Government grants totaling 3500 crores. In that case, how could the BBMP present a budget for 8800 crores? And mind it, the budget was only for nine months. It is here that S. K. Nataraj failed to see the ground reality.

Now that the financial year has come to an end, the BBMP was given a paltry grant of 300 crores by the Government instead of 1300 crores as expected by BBMP. No revenue has come from Akrama-Sakrama, as the scheme itself is yet to see the light. The BBMP has thus ended this financial year and also the term of the Mayor S. K. Nataraj with a shortfall of more than 6000 crores if the budget estimates are taken as the base. The BBMP is assured of 1500 crores of its own sources that are property tax and other license fees.

The Mayor however had tried to mobilize some more funds by levying betterment charges, Garbage cess etc. But, here too, lack of clarity disrupted the proceedings. The betterment charges of converted properties were expected to bring in about 500 crores, but there is a lot of confusion about the implementation of the scheme. Most of the ‘converted’ sites/properties were regularized by erstwhile BMP and CMCs much before the formation of the BBMP. As such, not much can be expected from this scheme.

It is another matter that S. K. Nataraj was laid down with illness for almost two months and as usual, the absence was exploited by the bureaucracy. In a way, the BBMP had no working Mayor for two months and the Deputy Mayor also was not allowed to discharge the Mayor’s duties.

More than anything, the Mayor had a running feud with the BBMP Commissioner Siddaiah. Under the present set up in the BBMP (and also earlier BMP), the Mayor has no executive powers and therefore cannot control the Commissioner. The feud between the Mayor and the Commissioner has become a permanent system in BBMP since years. The Commissioner in the present set up can refuse or reject Mayor’s order or directions and there is no way for the Mayor to enforce his decision then. The feud between them reached a flash point when the Mayor publicly accused the Commissioner of non co- operation and demanded his replacement.

Finally, the Bangalore In charge Minister R.Ashoka intervened and affected a truce between them. Unless the Mayor has executive powers, no Commissioner can be brought under control and S. K. Nataraj utterly failed to convince the Government of vesting executive powers to the Mayors.

It is another matter that Mayors in major Metropolitan cities like Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkatta etc. have executive powers and the Commissioners are bound to follow their orders. But the Mayor in BBMP and also in other Mahanagara Palike in the state is been reduced to mere titular heads without any powers.

S. K. Nataraj had also lamented that the Mayor has only one year term which is not sufficient to mark their rule and wished for 30 months term for the Mayor. But it is easier said than done. True, nobody can achieve much in12 month tenure, but the political Masters of the Mayors have to decide about the same. And on the contrary, no leader can allow a Mayor to overtake them in popularity by allowing him in power for long.

Whatsoever, S. K. Nataraj did not excel himself either in administration or in getting a name for himself. He has just become one among the former Mayors. That is all.