Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was officially dissolved in September 2025, being replaced by the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) as per the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act (GBG Act) passed by Karnataka. While this change has been presented as necessary to improve co-ordination and efficient service delivery, it violates the three-tiers of decentralised federal governance of the 74th Constitutional Amendment.
In 1993, the 74th Constitutional Amendment came into force with a promise of strengthening local democracy- with ward-level committees, empowered mayors and authority over planning, water, waste, public health and more to elected city governments. This promise was, however, never fully realised in most major Indian cities. In Bengaluru, even with the BBMP, only four out of the eighteen functions the 12th schedule specifies were devolved to the city corporation, while parastatals like the BDA continued functioning. Often, the lack of timely elections meant citizens were left behind without accountable local leadership.
This already weakened state of decentralization has been given a new blow with the GBA. Civic governance in the city is now divided into three rungs: (1) ward committees at the lowest level, (2) city corporations at the second-tier (currently, there are 5 corporations- North, South, East, West and Central), and (3) the ‘Greater Bengaluru Authority’ at the apex.
While this structure looks neat on paper, the GBA is headed by the Chief Minister, with the Deputy Chief Minister as vice- chair. It has various state ministers, MLAs and heads of parastatal agencies (like BDA and BWSSB) in the committee along with the mayors of the different corporations. Essentially, it concentrates power, bringing governance of the city directly under the Chief Minister and state government’s purview rather than a locally elected government.
Local issues of the people include housing, clean water supply, drainage, effective garbage collection, safe walking infrastructure, public transport, disaster response and displacement- they all require hyperlocal sensitivity and responsiveness. While the GBG Act has locally elected members and mayors for each city corporation, these elected officials do not hold decision-making power, which comes from above, from the GBA. Thus, elected city members become secondary players, following priorities set far away from the ground realities.
What this can mean on ground is large-scale, highly-profitable and highly-visible projects getting precedence over addressing the needs and grievances of the people. With state ministers concerned over increasing state revenues and bureaucrats not accountable to the people, decision-making risks turning more towards serving elite interests over addressing issues of flooding, poor infrastructure, water supply and safer cities for all.
GBA is being touted as an ‘efficiency fix’ for a city plagued with several problems. But in the pursuit of efficiency, it risks turning Bengaluru into a city where the people who live in it are left powerless to shape its present and future.
