The Hindu : BATF generates interest in other cities

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 09, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

BATF generates interest in other cities

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE May 8. The Bangalore Agenda Task Force was an idea whose time had come, and more and more cities in India were racing to take a leaf out of Bangalore's book, the task force member, V.Ravichandar, said here on Thursday.

At a presentation to non-government organisations organised by the Public Affairs Centre, Mr. Ravichandar said, "no other city has anything comparable.

The public-private-partnership of the BATF kind is unique.'' Over the last month, BATF had been participating in seminars all over the country, sharing its experience.

At the UNDP session on "Information Communication Technology" at the Indian Institute of Management recently, and at the CII conference in Chennai on the theme of urban local body financing, BATF's plans for the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, and the service agencies had made much news and drawn admiration.

Mr. Ravichandar said the BMP's Fund-based Accounting System (FBAS) was what corporations and civic agencies were looking to emulate in cities such as Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune and Nashik.

The best practices from BATF and the Bangalore Development Authority generated much interest at the Good Governance India conference in Delhi, he said.

There was a great deal of feedback from these cities too, with agencies wanting to know how to replicate the success of BATF, which had been offering its body of knowledge and experience as freeware to other cities.

Mr. Ravichandar said people in all these cities should take the initiative forward, and adopt the BATF model appropriately.

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