Bengaluru: Bangalore Apartments' Federation (BAF), a Federation representing the interests of hundreds of apartment complexes across the city, organised a political debate on an Apartment Residents Charter on Sunday in which prominent political leaders also took part.
The leaders included K. J. George, Bengaluru Development Minister, Dr Ashwath Narayan, BJP MLA from Malleswaram, Tanveer Ahmed, JD(S) National Spokesperson and Prithvi Reddy, National Spokesperson & State Convener of AAP.
It was organised to make the political class aware of issues that apartment dwellers 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 apartment residents were being penalised. They assured that these issues would be looked into and potentially included in the manifestos of the respective parties.
Low voting turnouts in the past from apartment residents were cited as a reason why politicians did not take them or their issues seriously.
Srikanth Narasimhan, General Secretary of BAF, said, “We are in daily communication with more than two lakh residents and the summary of this discussion will be shared with them too.”
