Bangalore city doesn’t have planners

Ever wondered why our civic agencies fail in planning and execution of civic projects, abruptly thinking of models like transferable development rights (TDR) for the citizens?

This is it: the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has no urban planners to look into such issues. The result is lack of basic facilities, haphazard development, increasing pressure on land and its rising value, infrastructural setbacks and unauthorised constructions.

BBMP has a town planning section formed under Karnataka Municipal Corporation (KMC) Act, 1976, which only sanctions building plans and issues commencement certificate and occupancy certificate.

Shockingly, the town planning engineers in this section are on deputation from other departments as the posts for genuine qualified town planning engineers have remained vacant since years.

“The BBMP does not have a post called ‘urban planner’. It has a joint director (town planning) (JDTP) at the head-office level and assistant directors (town planning) at the zonal office level,” said BBMP additional director (town planning) Tirukana Gowda, whose
post was created when BBMP was formed.

Gowda holds an IIT degree in town planning, but is on deputation to BBMP, like his subordinate director.

Dinakar K, Town Planners Association member, said a result of no urban planning was the elevated inner core ring road clashing with the Namma Metro project.