Reservation of wards in Solan, Mandi put on hold

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, August 27

The State Election Commission on Thursday put on hold the process of delimitation and reservation of wards in Solan and Mandi as the process to upgrade the two municipal councils was underway.

The State Election Commission in a notification stated that though we had issued the programme for delimitation and reservation of wards of municipalities in Himachal Pradesh on June 27, we have been informed by the Urban Development Department that the government has decided to upgrade the Solan and Mandi municipal councils to municipal corporations.

The State Election Council has therefore directed the Urban Development Department to put on hold the delimitation as well as the reservation of wards in municipal councils of Solan and Mandi.

Notably, the process of delimitation and reservation of wards is supposed to be completed before August 31.

The state government was keen on upgrading the two municipal committees ahead of the civic body polls slated for the year-end.

A corporation is supposed to fulfil two major criteria –population of 50,000 and annual revenue of Rs 2 crore. While Solan fits the first criteria with a more than Rs 2-crore revenue, its population as per the 2011 Census is 39,256.

In order to achieve the desired population, eight nearby panchayats – Anji, Kotho, Chambaghat, Saproon, Padag, Basal, Salogra and Kather – will be merged with the Solan municipal council as per the proposed draft notified by the Urban Development Department.

Director, Urban Development Department, Ramkumar Gautam said a proposal to merge eight panchayats lying in the precincts of Solan has been mooted and public objections have been invited within six weeks from August 24.

He said keeping in view a 15 per cent decadal growth, the existing population of Solan MC was likely to increase at least by 6,000 since 2011. The desired 50,000 population would be achieved after merging the proposed panchayats as they have a combined population of 23,722.

Gautam further said they were awaiting public objections and claims following which the process to upgrade the Solan MC would be taken forward.

The upgrade of Solan MC was a long standing demand of the residents as despite being the fastest growing MC, according to the 2011 Census, it is bereft of several central schemes.