The members of the International Committee attended a seminar sponsored by the City Manager's Association of Karnataka this morning at a nearby hotel. Karnataka is the state which Bangalore is located in. The session was also sponsored by the state government and ICMA's recently spun off Indian affiliate, the Urban Management Center. There were about 100 city managers and deputies (or commissioners as they are known here) at the event.
The session started with ceremonial singing and the lighting of a candle by myself, ICMA President Ed Daley (his photo speaking to the group is above) and the presentation of garland made of sandlewood shavings to each of the ICMA participants.
Ed welcomed the group on behalf of ICMA and I explained a little about the work of the International Committee. Committee member Roin Bergman gave a brief overview of local government structures in the USA.
Our Indian hosts responded with a presentation on Indian local government structures and then presentations from the City Managers of Bangalore, Mumbai (also known as Bombay) and Ahmedabad.
Whast was striking to me was that in the course of about 90 minutes we heard from three city managers responsible for providing municipal services for 31 million people!!! (Mumbai -19 million, Ahmedabad - 5.6 million, Bangalore - 6.5 million).
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