BBMP babus’ diary packed with official meets and little else

At the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, senior officials have little time to meet the public or even carry out administrative work. The reason: their days are packed with official meetings.

In fact, the officials aren’t happy about the situation as they complain about an increase in the number of meetings.

For instance, council meetings were previously restricted to the last two days of the month. But in the past three months, there were 14 such meetings, or nearly five a month, shows information available with the BBMP council section. These included special meetings called to discuss advertisement hoardings.


Ideally, council meetings should be held only for two days a month, said a senior official with the city corporation that governs more than a crore people. “Officers cannot involve themselves in any administrative work on the days of council meetings,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The number of average working days for officers is 22 in a month. If five days go towards attending council meetings, a quarter of the working days is as good as gone.

A joint commissioner of one of the BBMP zones said he attends 15-20 meetings a month. These exclude the meetings called by the BBMP commissioner, who seems to have made it a point to convene meetings of his subordinates after the office hours.

“There are other meetings like the standing committee meetings, those called by elected representatives for reviewing projects and the meetings that we, the joint commissioners, chair. These have become unavoidable,” the joint commissioner said. “As a result, it becomes difficult for public to access us.”

Pressed for time, commissioner N Manjunath Prasad has made it a habit to be at office from 6 am to 9 am and 6 pm to 9 pm to meet the public. “This is the only time I can make myself available for the public. The rest of the day goes in attending meetings, events and field inspections,” he said.

The unavailability of senior officials in their offices is troubling citizen activists because they are unable to present their issues and are unsure about the outcome of the meetings the officials are busy at. “With so many meetings held, citizens are wondering if they are yielding anything substantial. The productivity of meetings is questionable,” said activist Saidatta, who recently had to return from the BBMP office without meeting officials who were away attending meetings.

Former BBMP commissioner K Jairaj said the mayor and the commissioner should streamline meeting schedules. “The commissioner should frequently review whether all these meetings are required,” he said. “Administrative meetings can be scaled down so that officers get time to attend to their work.”