Committed to giving autonomy to urban local bodies, says CM

Chandigarh March 29

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today said the state government was committed to give full autonomy to the municipal bodies so that the works at the local level could be carried out in a time-bound and expeditious manner.

“Out of the state’s own tax revenue (SOTR) of about Rs 65,000 crore in 2022-23, about Rs 3,600 crore will be given to the municipal bodies. Apart from this, an additional

Rs 500 crore will be given as the previous dues,” said Khattar.

Check documents at one time

• The Chief Minister gave instructions to officials to check documents of citizens at one time, so that they do not have to make rounds of the offices
• The officials were also directed to enter the status of the application in the Auto Appeal software, so that in case of cancellation, the appeal automatically went to the next authority
• The CM directed the officials to increase the time limit for applying for birth, death and marriage certificates from 21 to 30 days

So, the municipal bodies would get Rs 4,100 crore to get development works done at their own level. Apart from this, Rs 5,000 crore was already available to all municipal bodies, added the CM.

The Chief Minister was chairing a review meeting of the works being done by the Urban Local Bodies Department with the mayors of municipal corporations and district municipal commissioners here today. Urban Local Bodies Minister Dr Kamal Gupta was also present at the meeting.

Taking cognisance of the complaint of negligence at work during the meeting, the Chief Minister ordered the suspension of Narwana’s executive engineer LC Chauhan with immediate effect.

During the meeting, the Chief Minister announced that the state government would bear the cost of the construction of office buildings of municipal corporations, municipal councils and municipalities. “If there is a need to buy land for the building or to transfer it from any department, then its expenses will also be borne by the state government. If any municipal body wants to do commercial activities by constructing a building on its land, it can do so. This will give additional income to the local bodies and this money will be used in the interest of the public,” he said, adding that for this, such types of projects should be operated by taking a loan or on PPP mode.

Khattar said a state-level committee should be constituted for restructuring and rationalisation in the municipal bodies, which would conduct a complete study by visiting the municipal bodies. Instructing the officers, he said a common portal should be made for the auction of properties in all municipal bodies. “If the bidding is unsuccessful due to any reason, then the bidding should be done again within one month and its responsibility will be of the district municipal commissioner,” he added.

The Chief Minister directed the officials to increase the time limit for applying for birth, death and marriage certificates from 21 days to 30 days. After that, a provision should be made to apply with a late fee.

Giving further instructions, the CM said the registration of new illegal colonies would not be done and the colonies already formed, in which some parts or patches are shown to be irregular; should be regularised according to the prescribed criteria. He said the government had approved 190 colonies recently and around 600-700 colonies were in the pipeline.