Siddaramaiah to chair first meeting of the controversial BBAG in Vidhana Soudha today
Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will chair the first meeting of the controversial Bengaluru Blueprint Action Group (BBAG) in Vidhana Soudha on Tuesday. Most prominent members of the group, including Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal, are expected to attend.
The CM is expected to walk into the meeting straight after his city tour. “Top honchos of industry, activists and people from civil society, who are part of the group, will meet for the first time. Although it will be a non-agenda meeting, we hope to get clarity on the direction we are to take after the meeting,’’ sources said.
“Setting the agenda will be priority on the first day as we have identified five subjects which need tackling, mobility, solid waste management, water, sanitation, lakes and pollution and environment. I will suggest we focus on mobility, where we can talk about the peripheral ring road, Namma Metro Phase 2 and 3, white topping of roads, elevated and signal-free corridor among other projects,” said a member of the group.
“We won’t just discuss but get things going with deadlines, and drawing up modalities for enforcement of mega projects. We will fix a day to meet every month since we don’t have much time on hand. It will probably be the last Saturday of every month,” he added
On the controversy surrounding BBAG, which is being called elitist by some, he said it was inclusive in nature unlike what was being suggested. “We are planning to take BBAG to a public platform through social media. We will post our discussions and action taken on it and invite people to comment on them or give their own suggestions. The primary idea is to make it interactive and not let things happen in isolation,” the member explained.
NRN, Premji to skip
IT czars Narayana Murthy of Infosys and Wipro’s Azim Premji are not attending the meeting. Mr Murthy, responding to an email by Deccan Chronicle, said he will not be attending the meeting as he is travelling. He wished “all the best” for the action group.
