Will GBA Make Bengaluru Greater?

ASHWINI M SRIPAD & MOHAMMED YACOOB @Bengaluru

- ASHWINI M SRIPAD & MOHAMMED YACOOB @Bengaluru

In 1949, Bangalore City Corporation (BCC) was formed by merging two separate municipalities. The population was around 7.5 lakh. But in the last 76 years, especially after the IT boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Bengaluru's population has soared several fold to 1.3 crore, resulting in the city's mismanagement. This has created numerous problems, including bad roads, uncleared garbage, floods when it rains, potholes and many more.

The BCC was subsequently named Bangalore Mahanagara Palike in 1989, and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike in 2007, with the corporation limits becoming bigger and wider, adding more number of wards, and has now become Greater Bengaluru Authority. Now, the State government has proposed to divide this area into seven municipal corporations but is likely to go for three or five smaller corporations. With this, it may come full circle as the BCC was formed by merging smaller municipalities.

According to the Economic Survey of Karnataka 2024-25, the BCC with seven divisions, subsequently increased to 50 divisions (later known as wards). As the city's population increased, the BCC/BMP expanded to include 87 wards in 1991, and 100 wards in 1995. In 2007, it was increased to 198 when it became BBMP, and seven City Municipal Corporations, one Taluk Municipal Corporation and 110 villages were added.

Working without a Council Bengaluru has witnessed more population and vehicular growth in the last two-and-half decades, but in these years, there was a council only for 15 years. This means, close to 10 years, the city's civic issues were mainly administered by bureaucrats and not councillors. Since September 2020, Bengaluru has not had a Council and is administered by senior IAS officers.