Bengaluru drives change with maximum online petitions on civic issues

BENGALURU: Urban protests are now seen as incomplete without an online petition furthering their cause. Living up to their city’s image as an IT hub, Bengalureans have filed the highest number of

online petitions

on

civic issues

this year, according to data obtained from

Change.org

, a commonly used website for campaigns.

With an estimated 2,100 online petitions started on Change.org to highlight civic, infrastructure and mobility problems this year, Bengaluru surpassed the combined tally of Delhi (600), Mumbai (800) and Kolkata (650). The country’s tally of petitions under this head is about 22,000.

“These are petitions in English and the activity pertaining to other languages like Hindi and Kannada is not reflected in this data,” said Nida Hasan, country director, Change.org India. While Change.org has a separate Hindi portal, it has a smaller user base. Petitions in languages like Kannada and Tamil can be filed on the main portal but they are very few in number.

Targeted primarily at the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the 2,100 petitions covered a wide range of issues, including a demand for rollback of the controversial pet licensing bylaws, audit of BBMP’s Rs 9,300 crore budget, withdrawal of the order stipulating handover of a BBMP super-specialty hospital to a private hospital and a sustainable, long-term, contractor-free waste management plan. Besides these macro concerns, Bengalureans also launched petitions to end localised problems like garbage dumping in their neighbourhood and near their workplaces.

According to Change.org, the nature of petitions differed from city to city. While Bengalureans were the most concerned about road congestion, polluted lakes, waste management, potholes, lack of infrastructure in the IT corridor and skywalks, Mumbaikars complained about toll charges, roads and local trains. For Delhi, pollution seemed to be the biggest worry and for Kolkata, the focus was on maintenance of bridges and flyovers.

Srinivas Alavilli of Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) which was formed in 2016 to oppose the proposed steel flyover along Ballari Road, said petitions like these brought like-minded people together, allowing them to take the movement further.

“The number of people affected by these issues is much larger, so every petition could be said to reflect the frustration of at least 1,000 people. Unfortunately, petitions alone will not make a difference, unless there is additional public pressure. In our case, we began with a petition, which led to a meeting and ultimately ended in a human chain that saw thousands of people participate,” he said. The steel flyover was junked even though a tender had been floated.

The BBMP, however, said it takes action whenever an issue is brought to its notice.

“As compared to residents of other cities, Bengalureans are more tech-savvy and demanding, which while being a good thing, is probably why a greater number of petitions are started from here. We resolve smaller issues like potholes, dysfunctional streetlights and black spots through our portal Sahaya, where residents can lodge complaints,” said BBMP commissioner N Manjunath Prasad.