AIRING THEIR GRIEVANCES: Bangalore Mahanagara Palike's janata dharshan began in Bangalore on Friday. People met officials and corporators and presented their grievances at redressal centres such as this one at Dasappa Hospital. — PHOTO: K. Gopi nathan

BANGALORE: It is common for people to lodge complaints with the police. But what if the police themselves become complainants?

This is what happened on Friday at the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike's (BMP) Jeevanabima Nagar grievance redressal centre, which is one of the 10 designated centres for the first round of the simultaneous redressal meetings. Inspector of Airport police station S. Dhanesh Rao complained to Mayor Mumtaz Begum that the BMP, which had promised to allot land for a police station at Kodihalli, had now gone back on its word.

"We are presently put up in a rented building in HAL quarters. After we were promised the land five years ago, we deposited Rs. 17 lakhs with the BMP. But we are yet to get the land," the inspector complained to the Mayor.

Engineer-in-Chief Rame Gowda, in charge of the Jeevanabima Nagar centre, told The Hindu that the BMP would now refund the amount to the police. "It has now been realised that we need that land for development purpose. We propose to construct either a maternity home or the ward office there," he said.

Though the meetings of the first round did not evoke a good response, most of the complaints recorded pertained to water supply and sewerage problems. Complaints regarding building bylaw violations, poor quality of road asphalting, flooding of low-lying areas during rain, irregular garbage clearance, delay in distribution of "hakku patras," excess billing, haphazard desilting of drains, debris on road sides, problems relating to food and civil supplies, and traffic were common at all the 10 centres.

The Mayor, who inspected the functioning of the redressal centres Jeevanabima Nagar, Hebbal and Sarvajnanagar warned the officials of disciplinary action if they ignored any grievance.

She also gave her mobile number to the residents of Sarvajnanagar and asked them to contact her directly if they had any problem.

BMP Commissioner K. Jothiramalingam and a team of officials supervised work at Chamarajpet, Chickpet and Yeshwanthpur. He directed the officials to redress problems as far as possible on the spot.

Of the total 696 complaints submitted at the centres on Friday, Chickpet topped the list with 130 and Chamarajpet centre got the least (31).

While 54 complaints were received at the Yeshwanthpur centre, 58 were recorded at Govingrajnagar, 51 at Hanumanthnagar, 70 at Madivala and 89 at Padmanabhanagar. Eighty-one complaints were recorded at Hebbal, 70 in Sarvajnanagar and 62 in Jeevanabima Nagar. The second round of redressal meetings will be held on March 13 from 9 a.m. at the offices of the Assistant Revenue Officers in Malleswaram, Gandhinagar, Rajajinagar, Gayatrinagar, Basavanagudi, Jayanagar, Binnypet, Shantinagar, Banaswadi and Shivajinagar.

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