In Bengaluru, People Voice Their Concerns To Have A Say In Corporation Budget

Bengaluru: Wouldn't it be nice if the citizens could decide how the city corporation spends its budget? Well, the citizens of Bengaluru are giving it a shot.

As a part of the initiative, "My City, My Budget", NGO Janaagraha collects inputs from citizens of the the about the problems they face and where they would like to see the city corporation, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), spend its money. 

A Bangalorean, Sunita, heard about the project online and posted her request. "In my area, the road is  always busy with traffic and there is no footpath for pedestrians. So I have requested for the construction of a footpath or pavement, because it's a commercial area with so many offices. It can be quite hazardous for the residents not having a pavement in their area," she told NDTV.

Sunita's suggestion is one among the thousands collected by Janaagraha as the NGO worked to forward the citizens' concerns to the city corporation. 

Sapna Karim of Janaagraha told NDTV, "This year, in total, the BBMP has received 67,533 budget inputs across various categories which include construction of public toilets, roads, footpaths. Health and sanitation issues are also the concerns raised by the citizens." The requests have been handed over to the authorities. But this was done last year too. Did it work?

Ms Karim said she was encouraged by the city corporation's response. "We did an analysis a few months ago to understand the extent to which the BBMP had actually looked into these inputs and about 12,468 inputs from last year are potentially on the pipeline for execution, which is about 22 per cent of all the inputs received last year. This is a healthy sign."

Manjunath Prasad, BBMP Commissioner, told NDTV,  "All the inputs will be taken into consideration and as far as possible - whatever the citizens inputs are - they will find in place in the budget."

Here's hoping the voice of the people is indeed heard.