Bengaluru: Janaagraha wants BBMP to spend on ending public urination

Bengaluru: Every year NGO Janaagraha teams up with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for a short duration participatory budget campaign ahead of the annual city budget, called 'MyCityMyBudget'.

"The concept is simple; we collect input from citizens online and offline (a special budget bus does the rounds for a few weeks) and then we sort them as per wards and category before formally submitting them to the Commissioner and Mayor, who will then direct various departments to take up relevant submissions and turn them into project codes for budget preparation. Around 12,500 such submissions have been made by citizens in the last three years and approximately Rs 600 crore worth of public works happened as a result," said Aleem, President, Changemakers of Kanakapura road (CKMR).

This year, Janaagraha requested the BBMP to take a different and more focused approach - to address the menace of public urination and to fix every broken footpath within a year.

BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad and other officials saw the merit of such approach and agreed to accept citizen inputs and allocate budgets.

Mycitymybudget in partnership with CKMR is getting the citizen inputs so that "yellow spots" (public urination spots) and bad footpath can be done away with.

"By getting citizens and civic groups across city to help identify "yellow spots" (public urination spots) and bad footpaths. Once identified, we can ensure they get into the plan of action. Research shows that public urination is connected to lack of public toilets or unhygienic public toilets. This year the BBMP will focus on raising toilet standards to "airport quality" and building new ones," Aleem said.

"This is a huge problem and if we really want to make a difference we must work together with BBMP in different parts of our city. If your organisation or group works in a particular area or ward or locality, you could take responsibility for your area by reaching out to your members and supporters, students, women and senior citizens around you and request them to help identify both these problem areas. We need to reach those that don't have a voice in the system. We are trying to change the way public toilets are operated and maintained. There are many best practices and lessons learned and we want Bengaluru to start over with how we manage public toilets. This again, cannot work well unless we as responsible citizens join hands with BBMP and keep an eye on things," he elaborated.