BDA has outlived its mistakes - my article for Deccan Chronicle on the botched public consultation on the citys Master Plan ... A few days ago, BDA had called for a public consultation with citizens about the Master Plan for the city that it is currently developing. Predictably, there were so many protests and complaints and threats of disruption that BDA was forced to cancel the event. I say, predictably for three reasons. The most important reason is BDA does not know how to make Master Plans. There is no one in BDA who has done this successfully anywhere, let alone in Bengaluru. And over time, people have figured this out, usually the hard way. The city is full of the failures of BDA. And citizens are now determined that they should not allow another round of the same errors to be repeated. Second, master planning is no longer BDAs job. After the creation of the Metropolitan Planning Committee, the mandate for master planning has passed to that body instead. It is called the MPC for a very simple reason - it is supposed to make the plan for the metropolis. Going forward, BDA simply has no jurisdiction for planning. Third, people are tired of being given some document or the other from government, and told that they must accept it. Instead, they have increasingly begun to remind the government that it is their democracy, and that they ought to have the primary say in imagining the future of the city. Which means, that the very first step on the new plan for the city must be to ask the citizens what they want the citys future to be. Rather than a Master Plan from BDA, what we need is a simple plan to close BDA. In its place, we can establish an Bengaluru Infrastructure Development Authority which can be the primary anchor for all public infrastructure, across sectors - roads, pipes, drains, wires, and so on. That would at least make one integrated entity responsible for the physical appearance of the city.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 03:07:21 +0000
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