Sometime back, we noted that the government had renamed Karnataka’s Urban Development Department as The Great Bengaluru Land Scam Department. Since then, developments have spiralled further and deeper into the mysterious inner workings of our system, and behold: another name change is being announced at the fag end of the year.

BBMP is being renamed U-TURN-MP on January 1st!

Surprised? You should not be, actually. Here’s the evidence:

After repeatedly insisting that a link road was a must through forestland in the prestigious University of Agricultural Sciences’ GKVK campus in north Bangalore and cutting over 680 trees in 2009, BBMP is now, at the end of 2010, saying the road is not necessary so they won’t proceed.

BBMP got going to build an underground parking lot at the Indira Gandhi Musical Fountain Park, very close to Raj Bhavan. Tenders were floated. However, opposition emerged, and BBMP now says it will recall the tender and has passed the buck to the state government.

The clincher though is roadwidening. For over three years, BBMP has pushed hard to widen roads at any cost, despite it’s TDR compensation scheme being a dead duck. And wherever strong opposition has emerged, BBMP has U-turns saying roadwidening is ‘put on hold’.
In 2011, without major reforms in the way Bengaluru is governed, we may see more U-turns, with citizen fury only rising.