Even as the five new corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) are close to completing a year since they were formed, old problems on the ground continue to haunt citizens, while they now seek a way out of new problems.The State government replaced the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Act, 2020, with the new Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024, in 2025, which dissolved the BBMP and formed five corporations in its place, with a pan-city body called the GBA, which came into force on September 2, 2025.The restructuring was envisaged to address micro-level issues through decentralisation of the administration. While the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was split into five corporations, what mattered on the ground was that the number of wards in the city almost doubled from 198 to 369, which it was hoped would take the administration closer to citizens.But this has made little difference on the ground. Even a year later, the city corporations are still mostly working with a workforce deployed for the old 198-ward setup and not upgraded to the 369 wards yet. Moreover, the vacancy rate is around 40%. This essentially means, the intended benefits of the new governance structure is yet to reach citizens.R. Rajagopalan, convenor of Bengaluru Coalition, puts it this way: the GBA is like a novel concept on paper without an execution plan.