Civic body must meet residents to fix issues

Hyderabad: Civil society demands basic civic amenities, more transparent, corruption free administration, and public representation, if the Municipal Act is to be amended.

Responding to the tweet by municipal administration and urban development principal secretary Arvind Kumar, asking for suggestions from civil society for the new Municipal Act the state government wants to legislate, people said that instead of seeking suggestions through Twitter handles, the administration should conduct a series of meetings with colony welfare associations and residential welfare associations in order to find out the lacunae in the current Municipal Act which has led to corruption and civic apathy.

Netizens also want measures that can be implemented at the ground level and they want officials to be made accountable.

Other suggestions were reducing the human interface pertaining to all permissions to be given by civic bodies, including building permission and parking fee, and downplaying the role of the corporator who has no relevance in the urban set up.

President of United Federation of Residents Welfare Associations Dr V.B.J. Chelikani Rao said that the power of corporators should be altered.

He said that ward committee members comprising of civil society should elect the corporator for better administration. Mr Rao said that like the gram panchayat elections, municipal elections have to be conducted without any party affiliation.

“Each corporator in the city represents more than one lakh population. To learn all the public grievances would be an impossible task for the corporator and he/she will complete their tenure without addressing 90 per cent of them. Ever since the constitutional amendment of the Municipal Act in 1993, for the formation of ward committees, every successive government has made a mockery of it,” he said.

He said that newly-elected ward committee members were henchmen of corporators and no one represented civil society. He recommends that the government form a ward committee comprising 15 members, 50 per cent of them women, to elect the corporators.

“There are efficient people like retired IAS officers, judges, police officers and several others who would come together for a better society and administration. If this obligation was included in the new Municipal Act, the core issue of corruption and effective administration will be sorted.” he said.

M. Padmanabha Reddy, secretary of the Forum for Good Governance, says the latest announcement by the government lacks sincerity.