Mayor announces 14-member MiC

Will replace non-performers after assessment

Raipur, January 16, 2010

Mayor Kiranmayi Nayak on Saturday announced the names of 14-member Mayor-in-Council (MiC) and made it evident that she would not hesitate in replacing even the entire team if no one will perform according to expectation. “The MiC team would remain unchanged till the next orders which could be six months an year or even earlier,” said Nayak while talking to the media persons at her office.

“You can call it a grace or assessment period during which I would observe the performance of all the members, their working style and whether they are discharging their responsibility up to the mark or not,” she added.

The MiC team comprises of four independent corporators. “We had to pick at least one candidate from women, SC/ST and OBC categories but we picked two women, one from SC while 5 from OBC,” she further informed. In this MiC team, Nayak had refrained from inducting any Brahmin corporator like Pramod Dubey or Gyanesh Sharma. Notably, Dubey was the strong contender for Speaker candidature from Congress but finally Manoj Kandoi’s name was announced after voting.

When asked whether Dubey was kept away from MiC team on suspicion of his involvement in cross voting for Speaker post, Nayak denied and said, “This is not true. We have not selected any member on the basis of such contexts. It might be possible that there could be few MiC members who had played key role in cross voting but our selection criteria was completely unbiased and focused on new member’s potential to perform.”

Nayak said she knew the names of corporators who were involved in cross voting but she said her entire concentration was in performance of her team.

Asked whether she consulted the PCC leaders during selection of MiC team, she said, “I have picked a balanced team using my known wisdom and no one has interfered in this process. I know, if a member would be taken on recommendation then it would be very difficult to deal the situation in the backdrop of his non-performance.”

Asked about her planning to create new zones in the city, she said, “Considering the current population within the RMC periphery which has crossed 10 lakh, we are planning to create ten zones. But at first, we will reshuffle all the zones and then create new ones according to group of connecting wards so that the zone office could within the convenient accessibility of the local people. Each of these zones will have at least one lakh population. Last time, the city was divided into eight zones in proportion with the earlier population – 7.58 lakh.”

Asked about the likely list of zone president, Nayak said, “There is no such rule to appoint zone commissioner and zone president but instead, ward committees can be constituted. However, we will decide everything while creating zones.”

About calling general body meeting (GBM), Nayak said her first priority was to create zones which, she indicated, would take at least one month after which she might call the GBM.