Decks cleared for creation of 3 MCs

Tribune News Service

Shimla, September 11

The Himachal Pradesh Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2020, was passed by the Vidhan Sabha today, paving the way for the creation of Municipal Corporations in Mandi, Solan and Palampur.

Urban Development Minister Suresh Bhardwaj tabled the Bill in the Vidhan Sabha today which proposes to reduce the population criteria for upgrading a Municipal Council to a Corporation from the present 50,000 to 40,000. For this sub section (2) in clause (i) of Section 3 of the Himachal Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act, 1994 will be amended. Further, the period for submitting objections too has been reduced from six weeks to two weeks.

The BJP regime has proposed to create three Municipal Corporations of Solan, Mandi and Palampur. However, the population criteria was not being met and the move to include the adjoining panchayats into the MC area is being opposed by people.

The reasons of the Bill tabled in the house state that the last census was undertaken nine years ago and since then the population of some of the urban areas may have crossed the statutory limit of 50,000 yet they cannot be declared as Municipal Corporation due to non-availability of updated data.

It says that the next census will take place in the 2021 and it may take considerable time for finalising the necessary data. Thus, some urban areas will be deprived of the benefits of having Municipal Corporation despite fulfilling population criteria.

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