Works stalled, govt plans more powers to Mayors

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 22

To accelerate the pace of development projects and to complete all works within the stipulated timeframe, the state government has decided to empower the Mayors of 10 municipal corporations. This was disclosed by Local Government Minister Brahm Mohindra while chairing a meeting with the Mayors.

Mohindra said it had been brought to his notice that work on some crucial projects of statewide importance had been stalled for the want of approvals from different government bodies. He said to remove this bottleneck, the department had mooted a proposal to strengthen the Mayors with more powers to enable them to take decisions and to complete the projects in a stipulated timeframe.

The minister apprised the Mayors that he had already discussed the matter with CM Capt Amarinder Singh and advocated the need to provide more powers to the Mayors. He said he also issued instructions to A Venu Prasad, Secretary, Local Government, to rationalise the categories of subjects that should be decided at the state level or corporation.

Mohindra said the state government would soon bring back one-time settlement policy concerning illegal buildings with a new look after redressing the shortcomings of the old policy. He said there were some shortcomings in the policy implemented earlier. He said only 1,018 online and 138 offline applications had been received till July 21. He said because of this, the government had decided to implement this policy again after taking into consideration the objections and suggestions of the citizens.

Highlighting the need of permanent placement of the police at the MCs, the Mayors said they had to face problems in getting the force from the district administration for removing illegal encroachments.