By Bhamy V. Shenoy
Recent Karnataka election has clearly showed that our democracy has a long way to mature to select honest, competent and dedicated representatives. According to Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 49 out of 77 winners with criminal records have won against candidates with clean records and out of 49, 12 winners have won with more than 20% margin. Another shameful statistics is that 27% of Cabinet Ministers have declared criminal records and 15% declared serious criminal records. When we analyse the workings of our Corporation in this background, it becomes clear that unless we the educated Mysureans get involved in the forthcoming Corporation election, Mysuru will go the way of Bengaluru. While we can easily give a long list of things that has gone wrong over the years, it is not easy to find what our Corporators have done for the city. On the other hand a list of Corporators who are capable of representing the best interest of the city is a short one. Just to show how serious the situation is let me give some examples. For those who do not have borewell, access to water is a major problem already. It will only get worse in the coming days. 24X7 water supply project, which Mysuru was lucky in getting has now become defunct. Is any Corporator concerned to find out ways of reviving that project? Many of them were even responsible for “killing” 24X7 project.” MCC should be collecting at least Rs.225 crores per year from property tax. But we are unable to collect even 50% for our potential. For those who are willing to pay honestly it is nightmare to pay tax. Has any Corporator tried to streamline property tax collection by implementing online system as has been done in Bengaluru and other cities? Our parks are in deplorable conditions and iconic People’s Park is on its death bed with library coming up soon. Though it is in total violation of Karnataka Parks Act, has any Corporator protested?
