Solan MC upgrade on, ward delimitation put on hold

Ambika Sharma
Tribune News Service
Solan, August 27

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

The SEC, in a notification issued today, stated that though it had issued a programme for the delimitation and reservation of wards of municipalities in the state on June 27, the Department of Urban Development had informed them that the government has decided to upgrade the two MCs to municipal corporations.

The SEC has, therefore, directed the department to put on hold the delimitation as well as the reservation of wards in the MCs of Solan and Mandi.

The process of delimitation and reservation of wards was supposed to be completed before August 31. The state government was keen to upgrade the two municipal committees ahead of the civic body polls slated to take place by the year-end.

A corporation is supposed to fulfil two major criteria, which include a population of 50,000 and annual revenue of Rs 2 crore. While the revenue was well above Rs 2 crore in the Solan MC, its population, as per the 2011 census, was 39,256. In order to achieve the desired population, eight nearby panchayats, namely Anji, Kotho, Chambaghat, Saproon, Padag, Basal, Salogra and Kather having a population of 23,722 have been merged as per the proposed draft notified by the department.

Director, Urban Development, Ramkumar Gautam said a proposal to merge eight panchayats lying in the precincts of Solan had been mooted and public objections had 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 slated to have increased at least by 6,000 since 2011. The desired 50,000 population would be achieved after merging the proposed panchayats.

He added that they were awaiting public objections and claims following which the process to upgrade Solan MC would proceed further. This upgrade was a long standing demand of the residents and it had been promised by successive governments. Various Centrally sponsored projects such as the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation could not be secured for Solan in the absence of the corporation status.