San Francisco, B'luru sign LoI under "sister initiatives"

A Letter of Intent (LoI) was signed between the cities of San Francisco and Bengaluru today for cooperation in the field of technological interventions in arts, culture and museums, as a part of the sister initiatives between the two cities.
As per the LoI signed under the aegis of Invest Karnataka 2016, interactive art and technology installations from San Francisco would soon be seen in the city, the state government said in a release.
It said the interactive art installations are aimed at sparking imagination and public interaction.
The LoI was signed by San Francisco Mayor Edwin M Lee and Karnataka's Commissioner for Industrial Development Gaurav Gupta.

The Government said participatory and interactive art and technology installations will be constructed at public places near Cubbon Park and Vidhana Soudha metro stations as well as San Francisco's Civic Center Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station.
Cleaning and sprucing up of the public spaces will be done by art colleges and organisations in Bengaluru and San Francisco, he added.

The survey said there are 12 cities which have laws dating
back to the 1960s-1980s and none of the laws reflect current and long-term demands of urbanization.
It said Delhi is the only city with Ward SDPs (Spatial Development Plans) and Chandigarh, despite being a "planned" city, neither has a contemporary Planning Act nor Metropolitan or ward level SDPs.

The survey said most cities do not generate enough revenue surplus to finance their capex requirements, and are hence heavily dependent on state and Central grants.
It said most corporations have huge vacancies severely impacting the quality of service delivery with Patna recording a 64 percentage shortage in staff, followed by Bangalore (52 pc) and Mumabi (21 pc).
On the stability of tenure of the (Municipal Corporation) Commissioner, Kolkata is the top scorer (2 in 5 yrs), followed by Bangalore and Jaipur (6 in 5 yrs), while Raipur (8 in 5 yrs) scored poorly.
The survey also observed that councillors lack resources to do their job effectively and are paid even less than Grade D employees.

It highlighted the case of Jaipur Municipal Corporation where the monthly compensation of a councillor is Rs 2,175, while that of a mayor is Rs 7,500, peon Rs 25,624, sweeper Rs 30,088, driver Rs 41,302, clerk Rs 53,534 and Commissioner Rs 1,04,114.