KOCHI: Members of eight standing committees in the Kochi corporation were selected on Monday. The 74 councillors elected members of finance, health, works, development, town planning, tax appeal, education and welfare standing committees through a secret ballot.
This term, the four key standing committees like health, town planning, development and education are reserved for women while the works, tax appeal and welfare are under the general category. The deputy mayor is the chairman of the finance standing committee.
Elections were held only to development, welfare, works and town planning committees while members to the other four standing co-mmittee members were unanimously elected.
One woman councillor has been elected to each standing committee. UDF women councillors elected as standing committee members are Gracy Babu Jacob (finance), Gracy Joseph (development), P.M. Nazeema (welfare), Adv. V.K. Minimol (health), Geetha Prabhakaran (works), Shyni Mathew (town planning), Delena Pinheiro (tax appeal) and Hema Prahladan (education).
Of the eight standing committees, only three chairmen posts are for men while other posts have been reserved for women by the State Election Commission. The standing committee members will select their chairpersons on December 7.
As per the informal agreement within the UDF, Gracy Joseph will be the development committee chairperson, Adv. V.K. Minimol will be the health committee chief and Shyni Mathew will be town planning committee chairperson.
The major aspirants for works, tax appeal and welfare committees’ chairmen are A B Sabu, M.B Muraleedharan, K. R. Premakumar and K.V.P. Krishnakumar from the Congress.
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