The Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) Explained: What Replaced BBMP and What It Means for You

I still hear it every week.

A client says “let me just check with BBMP” or “is this a BBMP-approved layout,” and I have to gently interrupt.

BBMP doesn’t exist anymore.

I don’t say that to be pedantic. I say it because a huge amount of information floating around online, including on some fairly well-known property portals, still hasn’t caught up to this.

And when the civic body governing your property changes, that’s not a footnote.

That affects which office collects your property tax, which portal processes your Khata, and who you’re actually dealing with if something goes wrong.

So let’s fix that.

Here’s Bengaluru’s new governance structure, in plain English, without the jargon that usually makes this stuff impossible to follow.

Quick Information on The Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA)

Here’s the snapshot. I’ll unpack every line of this below.

Category	What You Need to Know
What replaced BBMP	The Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), an apex coordinating body
Governing law	Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 (Karnataka Act No. 36 of 2025)
When it happened	BBMP officially dissolved September 2, 2025
Ground-level governance	Five new City Corporations: Bengaluru North, South, East, West & Central
Who leads the GBA	Chaired by the Karnataka Chief Minister. Bengaluru Development Minister is Vice-Chairperson
Who runs it day to day (for now)	M. Maheshwar Rao, IAS. GBA Chief Commissioner, acting administrator across all five corporations pending elections
Elections	Long overdue (last held 2015). Supreme Court has set a final deadline of August 31, 2026
Wards	Expanded from BBMP’s 198 wards to 369 wards across the five corporations
What GBA controls	Metro-wide master planning, cross-corporation infrastructure, coordination of BWSSB, BESCOM, BDA and other agencies
What each Corporation controls	Local roads, garbage, sanitation, property tax collection, ward-level works. Full autonomy, not overridden by GBA
Property tax / Khata	Being processed through your specific City Corporation via the e-Aasthi digital system

What the GBA Actually Is

For nearly two decades, one body, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, or BBMP, ran almost everything in the city.

Roads, garbage collection, property tax, building approvals, the lot.

Bengaluru grew from a city to a metro region of over 1.3 crore people during that time, and by most honest accounts, one civic body running all of it had started to buckle.

The state government’s answer was decentralisation.

In 2025, the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 came into force, and it did two things:

1. It dissolved BBMP entirely.
2. It replaced it with a two-layer system. The Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) as an apex coordinating body, and five independent City Corporations, Bengaluru North, South, East, West, and Central, actually running civic operations on the ground.

Think of it less like a single company being renamed, and more like one large company being split into five regional divisions, with a smaller head office coordinating the things that need to work city-wide.

Why Split It Into Five?

The honest answer… BBMP had gotten too big to run well.

A single body managing everything for a metro of this size meant local issues, such as a pothole, a garbage backlog, a stuck building plan approval, often got lost in a system managing the whole city at once.

The five-corporation model is meant to bring governance closer to the ground.

Each corporation has its own elected Mayor, its own council, and its own IAS Municipal Commissioner, responsible specifically for their region.

The idea is that Bengaluru North’s civic issues get handled by people focused on Bengaluru North, not by an office also juggling Electronic City and Yelahanka on the same day.

Who’s Actually in Charge Right Now

Here’s where I want to be very direct, because this is the part that’s still genuinely unsettled.

Each of the five corporations is meant to have an elected Mayor and Deputy Mayor.

Right now, those seats are vacant. Elections to the GBA corporations haven’t been held yet. 

This will be the first municipal election for these entities, and remarkably, Bengaluru hasn’t had a municipal election since 2015.

That’s over a decade of delay.

The Supreme Court has stepped in and set deadlines, extending them more than once.

As it stands, the final deadline the Court has set for completing these elections is August 31, 2026, and the Court has made it clear this is the last extension it will grant.

Until elections happen, each corporation is being run by an administrator.

Currently, the GBA Chief Commissioner is M. Maheshwar Rao, IAS, who was appointed when the 75-member GBA was formally notified in August 2025.

Practically, what this means for you…

There’s no elected corporator to escalate a local issue to just yet, and the system is still stabilising.

I’d treat anything you read about “the Mayor of Bengaluru” right now with a raised eyebrow. 

There isn’t one, because there are five, and none of those seats are filled.

What the GBA Handles vs. What Your Corporation Handles

This is the split that actually matters for day-to-day life:

The GBA (apex body) handles:

• Metro-wide master planning across the full 712+ sq. km. region
• Large infrastructure that crosses corporation boundaries. Arterial roads, flood management, traffic and pollution control
• Coordinating agencies like BWSSB (water and sewerage) and BESCOM (power) so they’re not working in silos
• Overall policy consistency across the five corporations

Your City Corporation handles:

• Property tax collection and assessment
• Roads, garbage collection, and sanitation within its boundaries
• Ward-level infrastructure and local works
• Day-to-day civic administration, and by law, the GBA cannot override this autonomy. An August 2025 amendment specifically protects each corporation’s decision-making powers.

So if you’re chasing a property tax query, a Khata issue, or a local civic complaint, you’re dealing with your City Corporation, not the GBA.

The GBA is the coordinating layer above it, not your first point of contact.

Which Corporation Are You In?

This is the practical question I get asked constantly, and it genuinely depends on where in the city you are.

Bengaluru’s civic map has been redrawn. The old 198 BBMP wards have expanded to 369 wards spread across the five corporations, so even if you know your old ward number, it’s worth re-checking.

I’d recommend confirming your current corporation and ward directly through the official GBA portal (gba.karnataka.gov.in) rather than relying on your memory of the old BBMP zone system.

The boundaries have shifted enough that assumptions can lead you to the wrong office.

What This Means If You Own (or Are Buying) Property

A few very concrete implications:

• Your property tax authority has changed. It’s no longer BBMP. It’s whichever of the five City Corporations your property now falls under.
• Khata and e-Khata processing runs through the e-Aasthi system, tied to your corporation. If you’ve been putting off a Khata-related task, this is worth knowing before you start.
• Building plan approvals and civic clearances now route through your corporation’s administration, not a single citywide BBMP office.
• Due diligence on any property should include confirming which corporation it falls under. This affects who you’d be dealing with for tax, approvals, and any future disputes.

If you’re mid-way through a property purchase and your lawyer or documentation team is still referencing “BBMP approval,” it’s worth asking them to confirm they’re working with current information.

This transition is recent enough that a lot of standard checklists haven’t been updated yet.

A Few Things I’d Watch Out For

• 🚩 Outdated online guidance. A lot of content, including on some large property portals, hasn’t caught up with the GBA transition. If something references BBMP as the active authority, treat it as potentially stale.
• 🚩 Assuming your old ward number still applies. With 369 new wards against the old 198, this is a real point of confusion. Verify, don’t assume.
• 🚩 Confusing the GBA with your City Corporation. They handle different things. If you’re stuck on hold with the wrong office, that’s usually why.

FAQs: The Questions I Get Asked Over Coffee

The Bottom Line

This isn’t a small administrative footnote. It’s a structural change to who governs Bengaluru, how your property tax gets collected, and who you’d be dealing with if something needs fixing. 

The transition is still mid-stream, elections are pending, and a lot of information out there hasn’t caught up.

My advice… whenever you’re dealing with anything property-related in Bengaluru right now, from a Khata query to a due-diligence check on a new purchase, confirm you’re working with current, GBA-era information. Not a checklist that still says BBMP at the top.

I’ll be updating this piece as the election situation develops and as more of the GBA’s systems settle in, so bookmark it if this is relevant to you.

Have a Property Question Tangled Up in the GBA Transition? Let’s Talk.

Whether you’re trying to figure out which corporation your property falls under, sorting out a Khata issue, or just want a straight answer instead of outdated advice, I’m happy to help you cut through it.

• 👉 [Contact us at Proptals]
• 📧 hello@proptals.com 
• 📲 [WhatsApp Proptals]

Until next time,

Tariq Sallam

Founder, Proptals | Your Real Estate Advisor in Bangalore

Disclaimer: This article reflects the GBA’s structure and status as understood as of August 4, 2026. This is an actively developing transition. Election timelines, jurisdictional details, and processes can change. Always confirm current details on the official GBA portal (gba.karnataka.gov.in) before relying on them for a transaction or dispute. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.