The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which gets criticised for its mismanagement of the civic infrastructure in the city, is all set to live-stream proceedings of its council meetings soon on its website, similar to the telecast of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in their respective TV channels.
“From the next council meeting (December 26), everybody can access the webcast of the council proceedings on the BBMP website. It will be available for both mobile and desktop devices. The entire process will be carried out by the Palike’s IT Department,” a BBMP official told TNM.
A pilot was carried out by the BBMP during the Mayoral polls earlier in October. This will be the first time that council meetings of the civic body will be broadcast live, as it is done by the London civic body.
“With the live webcast, the people of the city will come to know what decisions are taken in the council meetings. People have a right to know what their elected representatives discuss in these meetings,” said Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun.
The council meeting is attended by all the 198 wards of Bengaluru city presided by the Mayor, Deputy Mayor (also ward corporators) and BBMP Commissioner. Occasionally, other top officials of the BBMP also attend the meeting to answer corporators.
A recent media report highlighted how rather than concentrating on pressing issues like bad roads and improper solid waste management processes, the council spent significant amount of time on trivial issues. A total of 132 out of the 483 resolutions passed by the BBMP council in 2017, dealt with renaming roads, parks and playgrounds.
The decision to live-stream was first proposed by BBMP Special Commissioner BM Vijay Shankar in June after city-based NGO Janaagraha had found that to be a key demand during a survey among residents across the city.
Then Mayor, Sampath Raj, had incidentally welcomed the decision saying this will increase the transparency on part of the BBMP regarding its functioning. He also said that this will empower citizens to make informed choices about candidates for corporation elections.
Meanwhile, the proposal for streaming proceedings of the state assembly and council, as directed by former Speaker Kodagu Thimmappa, is still pending.