Bengaluru Climate Action Cell: Achievements And Disappointments

Bengaluru’s first ever Climate Action and Resilience Plan (BCAP) was launched on the 27th November 2023. The main objectives of BCAP are to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the city, and build adaptation and resilience against climate change hazards in a collaborative manner, leading to inclusive outcomes for Bengaluru’s citizens.This article attempts to take a critical look at the progress of BCAP since its inception.

Undoubtedly, the BCAP is a very well-conceived, comprehensive and ambitious initiative. To achieve its objectives, the plan has formulated short, medium and long-term strategies and actions in seven key sectors in consultation with the relevant stakeholder agencies.

Sl No	Sectors	Action tracks/goals	Number of actions
1	Energy and Buildings	5	38
2	Transportation	6	47
3	Solid Waste	4	39
4	Air Quality	5	35
5	Water, Wastewater and Storm Water	4	45
6	Urban Planning, Greening and Biodiversity	5	33
7	Disaster Management	4	23
	Total	33	260

The actions are classified into High, Medium and Low based on the following:

• High priority actions which have greater mitigation and adaptation potential, that need to be carried out immediately.
• Medium priority actions with moderate mitigation and adaptation potential as compared to other actions.
• Low priority actions that have lower mitigation and adaptation potential as compared to other actions.

BBMP now wishes to introduce BCAP at the ward level. In its latest budget, it is stated that “in order to implement the BCAP and focus on climate actions on the ground, one ward in every assembly constituency will be identified. For the realisation of the same, an amount of ₹28 crore has been set aside.” This is indeed laudable. Before commenting on this future plan, it might be worthwhile to take stock of where BCAP stands today in terms of efforts made and results achieved.

Bengaluru Climate Action Cell

To facilitate and spearhead implementation of BCAP as a multi-stakeholder driven collaborative process, a Climate Action Cell was constituted under the Chairpersonship of the Special Commissioner, Forest, Environment, Climate Change Management wing of BBMP, Smt. Preeti Gehlot, IAS, with participation from all relevant stakeholder departments as representative members of the cell.

Role of the Bengaluru Climate Action Cell :

• Hold meetings, ensure regular stakeholder coordination to facilitate timely implementation of actions as laid out in the BCAP.
• Help in aligning/strengthening projects and activities in the identified sectors with BCAP actions.
• Spearhead a set of priority projects and initiatives to accelerate achievement of BCAP objectives.
• Organize events to build capacities of stakeholders, convene discussions and generate awareness on BCAP.
• Monitor, Evaluate and Report the city’s progress on implementing BCAP actions, goals and targets.

An immaculate BCAP framework and the creation of a dedicated Climate Action Cell (CAC), has raised the expectations of citizens of Bangalore who are highly concerned about the adverse effects of Climate Change on the city’s environment. To examine if the CAC has played its role effectively, the author referred to the documents uploaded on its website. At the outset, it must be said that Cell has been quite transparent. Several documents/photographs have been uploaded on this website covering many aspects of CAC’s work in the last one and a half years.

From 12th February 2024 to 19^th June 2025, CAC has held 41 meetings regarding the implementation of BCAP. Put together, 528 persons have attended the meetings clocking about 938 person-hours. Contents of these meetings can be summarized under the following broad headings.

1. Participation
2. Subjects/action points discussed
3. Other matters taken up
4. Programs/events organized by the Cell
5. A critique of the CAC in terms of
   1. Results/Outcomes of CAC’s actions
   2. Subjects not taken up by CAC
   3. Suggestions for future

A. Participation

All CAC meetings have been chaired by Smt. Preeti Gehlot, IAS Special Commissioner, Forest, Environment, Climate Change Management wing of BBMP. Shri. Tushar Girinath, the former Chief Commissioner of BBMP, attended just three meetings. Representatives of BBMP’s departments such as Lakes, Horticulture, Forest Cell and Roads have been regular participants.

Representatives of other government departments/agencies attending CAC meetings(occasionally) have been from BESCOM, BWSSB, Police, BDA, Transport, DULT, BMTC/KSRTC, BMRCL, Industries and Commerce Department, KSPCB and BSWML(Solid Waste company)

Being partners in the BPAC initiative, representatives of WRI(World Resources Institute) India and C40 Cities have attended most of the meetings. One non-governmental organization which has attended a few meetings is Biome Environmental Trust. Other organizations which attended a few meetings were those who had submitted proposals for potential collaboration.

Observations:

CAC has over 100 friends of CAC but proceedings of meetings do not mention any of them having attended the CAC meetings. Separate meetings have been held for friends of CAC but details of what was discussed are not available.

There is also no evidence of common citizens having been invited to participate. Through my letter dated 15th January 2025, I had requested the Special Commissioner that I may be given an opportunity to make a 10 minutes presentation in the meeting to explain a suggestion submitted by me. I did not receive a response.

This exclusivity is quite contrary to what Shri Tushar Girinath, the then Chief Commissioner of BBMP had said in the document called “Summary of BCAP”: “while the BBMP, along with all the key departments of the Government of Karnataka working in and for the city, will lead the implementation of the plan from the front, the BCAP can only be a success with participation from and partnerships, which include citizens and civil society, knowledge institutions, and the private sector.”

B.Subjects/Action points discussed during the meetings:

No	Sec No	Action point (taken from the document BCAP-Sector-wise Action Recommendations)
1	W, WW, SW- 1	Enhance access to safe and reliable water and sanitation services for all
2	W, WW, SW- -2(sic: as per the document)	Ensure water security by conserving water resources, recycling and safe reuse of wastewater, and diversifying the city’s sources of water
3	W, WW, SW – 2.10	Create aquifer plan that includes participatory aquifer mapping of groundwater levels across the city, and publish it on the open access platform, to ascertain water resource availability and to identify actions to recharge and replenish groundwater sources
4	W,WW,SW – 2.15	Ensure strict enforcement of rainwater harvesting at the plot/community level across the city, to increase groundwater recharge and improve water and energy efficiency by reducing dependency on Cauvery piped water supply, pumping, water transportation and unauthorised/illegal water extraction
5	W,WW,SW- 3	Restore and enhance sponge spaces to increase groundwater recharge and decrease stormwater runoff through green infrastructure technologies
6	E & B 1.8	Conduct mandatory energy audits for all the public buildings with a connected load of 100kW or certain threshold to assess their energy efficiency potential
7	E & B 2	Promote green buildings and low-carbon buildings with passive and active design strategies
8	E & B 3.5	Ensure implementation of utility-scale energy storage for load or supply, to enhance the power generation flexibility of rooftop solar systems and other renewable energy sources
9	AQ 1.8	Develop low-emission zone (LEZ), ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ), or zero emission areas in the identified hotspots and restrict vehicle movement to limit tailpipe emissions, especially by heavy vehicles.
10	T- 5	Transitioning towards cleaner and greener freight through policies, incentives, and fleet management
11	UPGBD-3	Adopt nature-based solutions (NBS) as an urban planning and design tool to improve resilience and liveability Goal/Target: Conserve and restore all blue-green networks in the city. All urban infrastructure schemes and projects should adhere to disaster resilience standards. Increase the city’s tree cover (canopy) from the baseline by 10% by 2030 and 20% by 2040. Increase the city’s green (vegetation) cover and permeable surfaces to 40% of the city’s area by 2040, to tackle flood- and heat-related disaster risk reduction LakesParksMapathon
12	UPGB D-3.3	Map the city’s blue-green cover, including natural drainage, water bodies, floodplains, trees outside forests (TOF), etc., to create a baseline and integrate into the city’s spatial database to facilitate regular updating.
13	SWM 1.8	Create standard operating procedures (SOPs)/guidelines, and conduct regular (quarterly/half -yearly) trainings and workshops for pourakarmikas to ensure effective segregation of waste at sources (such as household, commercial, open spaces, streets, public/religious spaces, etc.)

C. Other matters taken up

• Capacity Building for BCAP implementation
• Climate Budgeting
• Working methodology for CAC
  • Key Performance Indicators(KPIs)
  • Social media presence
  • Webpage
  • Fellow Program
  • Chatbot
• Documentation of good practices
• Blue-green awards
• CSR Convening
• Collaboration proposals
  • Chatbot
  • Rooftop solar
  • Zero waste temple clusters
  • Ward level fact sheet
  • Spread awareness about BCAP through Social media
  • Sponge complexes and recharge wells
• Commitment from stakeholder departments
• Ward level climate action

D. Programs/Events organized by the Cell

The Gallery section of the CAC webpage has a list of about 73 programs/events/field visits held by the cell. Some of the subjects/issues discussed during these programs/events are as follows:

• Shallow aquifer management program
• Strengthening water conservation and greening efforts
• Zero Emission Area
• Datajam on Addressing Urban Heat in Bengaluru
• Resilient, Inclusive, Safe and Accessible Public Spaces
• Climate Budgeting
• Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) for commercial buildings
• Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Blugreen Infrastructure (BGIN).
• Virtual Mapathon—a tool empowering citizens to request tree planting & parks
• CSR convening with key stakeholders
• Bluegreen Awards
• Sustainable mobility for a cleaner Bengaluru
• Child-friendly urban spaces

Observations about B,C and D above:

• CAC has rightly discussed the issue of “Capacity Building for BCAP implementation” and evolved a sound working methodology for its internal functioning.
• CAC has put in place a “Fellow programme” and a few Fellows have joined the cell.
• Blue-green awards is definitely a pioneering initiative.
• Climate Budgeting and CSR Convening are also very important programs to take care of the financial aspects and funding.
• Out of the 7 sectors, CAC appears to have paid attention mainly to 2 out of the 7 sectors namely “Water, Wastewater and Storm Water” and “Energy and Buildings”.
• Proceedings of the meeting held on 12th February 2024 records that BBMP will create 100 Blue-Green spaces. This list has neither been uploaded nor been shared despite a specific request.
• On one of the action points ““”Develop low/ultra-low/zero emission zones (LEZ), 25 officials brainstormed to co-create a zero emission area vision on 21st May 2024.” However, once again neither any document on this vision has been uploaded nor been shared despite a specific request.

The Virtual Mapathon tool designed to enable the citizens to recommend spots for tree plantation is a good idea but personal experience of the author and a colleague shows that it needs to be fine-tuned and made more user-friendly.

E. A critique of the CAC in terms of:

i. Results/Outcomes of CAC’s actions

Since BCAP has set clear goals, targets and actions across sectors, its emphasis is expected to be on results/outcomes. This framework has the characteristics of a typical corporate Performance Management system(PMS) in which KRAs(Key Result Areas) and KPIs(Key Performance Indicators) are fixed, periodically measured, monitored and course-corrected. While it is recognized that most BCAP goals/targets may not get achieved in one year, it is reasonable to expect some tangible/measurable progress towards achievement of the goals/targets.

Keeping this in view, an RTI application was submitted to CAC seeking information about “Status of achievement of Goal/Target/Output/Outcome as on 24th January 2025”.

The response received was as follows:

“Climate Action Cell of BBMP is functioning under the chairmanship of the Special Commissioner (Forest, Environment and Climate Change Management). It does not hold responsibility for implementing any works. The required information can be obtained from concerned department.”

Let us look at this response in the context of the following two elements of CAC’s role.

• To hold meetings, ensure regular stakeholder coordination to facilitate timely implementation of actions as laid out in the BCAP.
• To Monitor, Evaluate and Report the city’s progress on implementing BCAP actions, goals and targets.

Admittedly CAC is not directly implementing projects but how can it facilitate timely implementation if it does not have data/information about the status of achievement of goals/targets on a periodic basis?

Not satisfied with the response, the author filed the first appeal. After the hearing of the first appeal by the Special Commissioner, the gist of the response received is as follows:

As per order Number: CO/PR/236/2023-24 dated: 30-12-2024 of the Chief Commissioner, BBMP, the Climate Action Cell has been established to co-ordinate with various departments with the intention to reduce the Green House emission in Bangalore and to reduce the climate hazards.

The Concerned Departments have been requested to implement but are not legally obliged to file reports of targets achieved etc to the Climate Action Cell. The applicant is therefore advised to obtain the facts/figures (statistics) from the concerned departments.

Since CAC did not share any information, an attempt was made to access some sections of its website and also print media to compile data/information about Results Achieved in respect of two subjects namely: 1. Lakes and 2.Tree Census. Media reports show that on both these subjects, the situation is far from satisfactory. (These sections have since been removed from their website.)

Section 1:Kere Mitra-Lake Monitoring System

Section 2: Summary of BCAP action status : This folder was found to be empty

1.Lakes:

Section 1(Lakes) has a dashboard giving some statistics, Top Lakes Inspected in this Month, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) and some Orders & Circulars. It was hoped that this section will provide information about actions taken by CAC to address the well-known problems of Bangalore’s lakes. However, no such information was found in this section. Therefore, the author searched the on-line news stories published in the local newspapers.

Given below are 5 stories and what they said about the state of lakes.

1. Jan 19, 2025: Bangalore Mirror
   “Most number of encroachments on lakes in state are in Bengaluru: 5,109 encroached upon, of which 2,067 are still not cleared out; number of lakes in city shrinking rapidly.”
   “According to an IISc report, Bengaluru had 1,452 lakes in the 1990s. However, by December 2020, this number had reduced to just 210, with 66 lakes still undeveloped.”
2. Mar 21, 2025: Bangalore Mirror
   “Lakes in the city have become most vulnerable to all types of encroachment due to a lack of coordination between the BBMP Lakes Department and the Revenue Department.”
   “Lake activists from KR Puram have been running pillar to post to reclaim Vengaiah Lake land that was encroached on by land mafia.”
3. May 22, 2025: The Hindu
   “In the aftermath of relentless rains that lashed Bengaluru over the past few days, 63 out of the 183 lakes under the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) jurisdiction have reached full capacity. However, environmentalist Raghavendra B. Pachhapur said that cleaning the surroundings of the lake is not enough. ‘Filling lakes with polluted water, that is a mix of sewage and rainwater, is not an achievement. The BBMP needs to work on making a way for pure rainwater from surrounding areas to reach the lake.’”
4. May 26, 2025: Bangalore Mirror
   “Crores of rupees spent for restoration work by at least two different agencies, efforts of volunteers and citizens — all go in vain as dirty water has been let in once again into Benniganahalli Lake. Activists accuse BBMP’s SWD dept of carelessness, but officials say it is just ‘rain water’.”
5. Jun 4, 2025: Bangalore Mirror
   “National Green Tribunal (NGT), in December, has sent notices to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and KSPCB in a suo motu case regarding high levels of heavy metals and metals and toxic substances in the Arkavathi River stretch near Thippagondanahalli (TG Halli) reservoir.”

2. Tree Census:

During the function held on June 6th 2025 to commemorate World Environment Day, CAC showcased the ongoing Tree Census being carried out under the orders of the Karnataka High Court.

The following news stories throw light on the ground reality of the census.

1. Times of India (January 16, 2025) reported as below.
   “The ambitious tree census being carried out by BBMP after over four decades is riddled with unmarked trees, incorrect map positions, missing entries, duplicate records and misidentification of tree species, environmentalists have alleged.
   
   “One purpose of a tree census is to identify when a tree is missing. If someone tries to track the trees, using the numbers on their trunks, the current system is not of any help. We’ve had discussions with the forest cell, but the process remains confusing for citizens,” an activist added.”
2. Citizen Matters (February 22, 2025) said the following:
   “After several delays and court orders, BBMP was able to count only 18,144 trees in 2022. The census process sped up in February 2024 and was expected to be finished by October. But only 4,16,888 trees have been enumerated till January 2025. At this pace, Bengaluru may finish counting its trees long after they have disappeared.
   
   Citizens and experts have identified significant quality gaps, including incorrect map positioning, missing and duplicate entries and incorrect species labelling. Improper numbering, such as non-consecutive numbers for adjacent trees, hampers the effectiveness of the census, especially for citizens to find and notify missing trees.
   BBMP also maintains a dashboard to update the geotagging and other data fields from the Bengaluru tree census. However, this database has many flaws. Some trees are inaccurately mapped, certain marked trees are missing from the dashboard, some entries appear twice, and photos are incorrect.”
3. Bangalore Mirror (Mar 11, 2025) has pointed out some problems
   “Sources in BBMP say the process is delayed due to an array of reasons – shortage of manpower, technical glitches in the digital application developed by the Karnataka Remote Sensing Institute to record the census, and delay in paperwork. ‘The software being used to enter data faced uncountable glitches during the initial seven-eight months of its operation. The exercise is also marred by manpower issues.’”

ii. Subjects not taken up by CAC

Out of the 260 action points listed in BCAP document, the author considers the following eight as big ticket items having a significant impact on Bangalore’s environment/climate. The author wrote a letter to the Special Commissioner dated 15^th January 2025 requesting her to pay attention to them. No response has been received.

1. T 1.5 Implement the approved BMLTA Bill and establish the authority for coordinated action among different transport stakeholders.
2. T 2.2 Create bus priority lanes as prescribed by the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP), and improve services by adding components such as safe and usable bus stops integrated with Passenger Information System (PIS) interface, clear signages to help commuters navigate, etc. to improve efficiency and user experience.
3. T 2.6 Chalk out a detailed Intermediate Public Transport (IPT) plan for the city (along the lines of CMP) which includes regulatory provisions and operational mechanisms for all IPT modes (autorickshaws, e-rickshaws, app-based taxis, etc.)
4. AQ 1.8 Develop low-emission zone (LEZ), ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ), or zero emission areas in identified emission hotspots and restrict vehicle movement to limit tailpipe emissions, especially by heavy vehicles.
5. UPGBD 1.1 Revise the city’s master plan based on compact development principles and incorporate provisions of the approved Bengaluru Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Policy.
6. UPGB D 1.2 Prepare and adopt the ‘TOD Vision and Corridor Plan’ and TOD Zone Plans (TZPs) for all stations along metro Phases 2A and 2B by 2025. Prepare and adopt TZPs for all mass transit stations in the city by 2035 based on a TOD phasing strategy.
7. UPGB D 3.2 Complete the ongoing Tree Census exercise in the city by 2025 with periodic updates.
8. UPGB D 3.3 Map the city’s blue-green cover, including natural drainage, water bodies, floodplains, trees outside forests (TOF), etc., to create a baseline and integrate into the city’s spatial database to facilitate regular updating.

Note: on points 4,7 and 8, some work has been done but either there are no concrete results/outcomes visible. Neither have the details been shared in the public domain nor with the author despite a specific request.

iii. Suggestions for future

In view of the environmental crisis being faced by Bengaluru, preparation of a Climate Action and Resilience Plan (BCAP) was a very commendable decision. Creation of a Climate Action Cell under an IAS officer was also a right step. For the cell to be effective, here are some suggestions.

1. The Cell should ideally be a part of the office of Deputy Chief Minister.
2. It should always be headed by an IAS officer.
3. The tenure of the Head-CAC should be 3 years.
4. The cell should be empowered with adequate authority to enable it to facilitate and expedite implementation/execution of decisions/actions.
5. The cell must focus on high impact action tracks, goals/results and outcomes mentioned in the BCAP document.

The cell should work with an inclusive approach and involve common citizens in a meaningful manner.