Passing the buck BESCOM, BBMP, BWSSB and the forest department – who will bell the cat?

Passing the buck BESCOM, BBMP, BWSSB and the forest department – who will bell the cat?

Bengaluru: It is not something new that there is a lack of coordination between the various government departments such as the BESCOM, BBMP, BWSSB, and forest department. Most often one department will not know what the other departments are doing and in some cases, the department will not know its own responsibilities. This lack of understanding results in confusion and breeds inefficiency and corruption in the government departments.

One of the common traits among them is the absence of ownership and responsibility when it comes to any public works such as development and maintenance. To begin with, it must be mentioned that the government allocates crores of rupees in the annual budget and there are more than enough resources and it is only a lack of will and intent on the part of the agencies to translate it into real development and action on the ground.

A classic example is the following scenario

Every now and then the forest department will go on a spree planting trees without any planning to complete the targets on paper. These are planted under HT overhead wires. When these trees grow up they are a danger to people as the branches touch the HT overhead wires and the BESCOM officials regularly trim and prune the branches. The branches are not cleared and they keep lying on the road. Concerned citizens inform the BBMP and they say it is not their responsibility and it is the BESCOM’s responsibility to clear the trimmings. BESCOM passes on the responsibility to the forest department.

Over two years ago, a huge almost 100-year-old tree in Bangalore Central district Agara Ward 114, Shantinagar Constituency got uprooted, fortunately, it fell onto the playground and there was no casualty. The forest department cleared the branches and the main stub of the trunk and the roots with a girth of about 3-4 meters is still lying on the road and is an obstacle to the regular road users. Repeated complaints to the corporator and the MLA of the area have had no result, wherein each one says it is the other’s responsibility. In between elections have come and elections have gone and that is, not surprisingly, the attitude of the elected. When this issue was raised with the BBMP the concerned officer of ward 114 explained that it is the responsibility of the Forest Department to clear the trunk and that BBMP will clear only small twigs and branches. This response sounds reasonable in this given context but it should be consistent and not an excuse based on the whims and fancies of the concerned officials as in the following case.

Moving over to 5th Main, First Stage, 3rd Block HBR Layout. A complaint was raised by residents to BESCOM regarding the trees touching the overhead wires and posing a risk to people. After no response initially from BESCOM helpline 1912, the BESCOM sprung into action when the issue was escalated and pruned the trees. The trimmings are lying around. A complaint was raised on BBMP Sahayaka app and the concerned engineer was contacted. The concerned official stated that it is not the responsibility of BBMP as they do not have provisions to compost the trimmings and that it is BESCOM who should clear these trimmings. Now the simple question is what will BESCOM do with the trimmings when BBMP itself has no solution, and whose duty is it. The concerned ward supervisor  of Ward 24 one Syed  mobile: 9071100865 has the audacity to say “what are we supposed to do?” Perhaps only the BBMP Commissioner Anil Kumar will have an answer to this. The buck should stop there. This is definitely not the expected response of any government official. Let’s not forget it is the taxpayers money that is involved and citizens have a right to expect services from these departments.

Passing the buck from one department to another such as the BBMP, BESCOM, BWSSB and the forest department, in this case, has become a routine.  Incidentally, Bangalore City development portfolio is held by the Chief Minister of the state. Will the honourable Chief Minister of the state kindly intervene and do the needful to ensure that real meaningful development and maintenance of Bangalore City takes place and that there is accountability and responsibility on the part of the government officials.  No matter how small the issue may be.