The Hindu : BATF summit: BMP, BMTC reports today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 28, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

BATF summit: BMP, BMTC reports today

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, JAN. 27. The sixth summit of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) will begin here on Wednesday.

All seven stakeholders, Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM), Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), and the police will present their "progress reports" for the year gone by and plans for the new year.

According to BATF members, the focus will be on a status report that will list what has been achieved last year, compared to what was planned at the last summit. On January 28, 29, and 30, there will be audio-visual presentation on the BATF experience and the difference it has made to the lives of the people. While BMTC and BMP will make their presentations from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the J.N. Tata Auditorium on the Indian Institute of Science campus on Wednesday, the police will make a presentation the same afternoon at the office of the Commissioner of Police on Infantry Road.

All these agencies have something positive to tell the taxpayer. The BMTC has been steadily strengthening its fleet with modern buses and the BMP can claim to have increased its revenue and streamlined its tax collection. It responded well to the citizens' initiatives to make its spending more accountable to taxpayers and allowing prioritisation of works needed in their neighbourhood.

Although the city is not crime-free, the police have solved some of the more sensational crime cases, which made news and managed to bring some order to the city traffic although the large-scale imposition of one-ways was not welcomed by all road users.

On Thursday, BSNL, BDA, and BESCOM will make their presentations in the forenoon. On Friday, the BWSSB will present its report and future projections. Despite poor rains, the BWSSB has managed to maintain a normal supply most of the year while commissioning new sewage treatment plants which now have a total capacity of 70 million litres of recycled water a day.

Coping with increased competition, BSNL has made its services more consumer-friendly and has offered an extra line with a flat monthly fee of Rs. 499 for those who want to use it exclusively for the Internet. The BDA recovered more land from those who illegally occupied it and commissioned a number of new flyovers and underpasses making commuting faster. BESCOM has a mixed bag to show, increasing the tariff for non-domestic consumers while maintaining the rate for householders. The frequent load shedding has not exactly won it admirers.

On January 30, the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, and the BATF Chairman, Nandan Nilekani, will address the stakeholders. It will be the occasion to identify the drawbacks and lapses if any and measures to improve services. Since the last summit, the State Government has started a Nirmala Nagara project in 30 other urban centres, replicating the BATF experiment. On Friday, BATF is expected to present the findings of a citizens' opinion poll: what is right and what is wrong with Bangalore.

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