Bangalore Apartments’ Federation (BAF), a Federation representing the interests of hundreds of apartment complexes and lakhs of apartment residents across Bangalore, organized a Political Debate on an Apartment Residents Charter on Sunday, 22nd April 2018 at Chowdiah Memorial Hall in Malleshwaram. The event was organized in the form of a panel discussion attended by representatives from political parties and moderated by Shri. V. Ravichandar, Chairman & MD of Feedback Consulting.
Shri. K. J. George, Bengaluru Development Minister represented Congress, Dr. Ashwath Narayan, MLA from Malleshwaram, represented BJP, Shri. Tanveer Ahmed, National Spokesperson, represented JDS and Shri. Prithvi Reddy, National Spokesperson & State Convener represented AAP.
The political debate was organized to make the political class aware of issues that apartments have been facing, including discriminatory tariffs, lack of civic services in many areas, services not being provided against cesses like garbage cess, sanitation cess etc. About 750 apartment residents from across Bengaluru thronged the venue to witness the panel discussion.
The issues assume significance in light of the fact that about 40 – 50% of the city’s population could be living in apartments & high-rise buildings in the next 10 – 15 years. All the politicians concurred that the issues raised by BAF were very relevant and were indeed discriminatory / penalizing against apartments. They assured that these issues would be looked into and potentially included in the manifestos of the respective parties.
It was also pointed out by some of the panelists that it was very important for citizens to vote and demand accountability from the elected representatives. Low voting turnouts in the past from apartment residents were cited as a reason why politicians did not take apartment residents or their issues seriously.
R. Balasubramanian, President of BAF, said, “We are very happy that senior representatives from all the major political parties were present and our issues have been taken into account.”
Srikanth Narasimhan, General Secretary of BAF, said, “We are in daily communication with more than 2 lakh residents and the summary of this discussion will be shared with them too.”
Vikram Rai, Treasurer of BAF, concluded, “This is the first step for us in our engagement with the political class and we are expecting that we will get a resolution to all our issues fairly soon. We will also ensure that apartment residents come out and vote in big numbers during the upcoming elections and thereafter too.”
