Mayor must get power to write civic Commissioner’s ACR

Says govt should give full liberty to civic bodies

Raipur, October 28, 2010

The mayor should get power to write civic Commissioner’s annual confidential report (ACR) the civic bodies that are elected in democratic manner must get full liberty in terms of decision and policy making. Mayor Kiranmayi Nayak expressed these views while she was talking to the media persons on Thursday.
“At present the civic bodies are toothless as the state government has kept all the significant powers in its control. Consequently, various schemes and projects of the civic bodies have been affected,” she said.
When asked why she only stands against the government while the elected heads of other civic bodies never look disgruntled, Nayak said, “I raise objection because the government is treating Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC) unfairly just because it is being ruled by Congress.”
She pointing out that all the key decisions are being finalised by the civic administration after Urban Administration and Development department’s approval.
Asked what if the Commissioner’s powers would be increased, Nayak said, “The government has already given adequate power to the Commissioner by increasing his fund sanctioning limit from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. Now, it is planning to authorise the Commissioner to approve works and projects up to Rs 50 lakh. Is not an indirect mode to dominate the Congress-led RMC?” she asked. 
Asked how much time she would take in transforming the city’s look from abject to organised if given complete powers, quipped, “Just one year. We have already proved our commitment and in spite of less power we succeeded in bringing various effective policies into practical footing including solid waste management, hoarding policy, vendor’s policy and installation of water meters that was delayed during the BJP regime at RMC due to which the last installment of fund under JNNURM was not released. Besides, we have launched massive sanitation drives and have successfully exposed the corruption prevailed in the civic administration.”
Asked what if the government would refuse to give powers to the civic bodies, Nayak said, “We are first planning to constitute Chhattisgarh Council of Mayors in the first week of December 2010 and then we would jointly put our demand before the government to provide complete liberty to the civic bodies on the basis of 74th Constitutional amendment that advocates for consolidation of such elected bodies.”




Property tax on empty lands

Raipur, October 28, 2010

The municipal corporation will now recover property tax from those who own empty lands. The civic Commissioner Om Prakash Choudhary has asked Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) Krishna Kumar Dubey and assistant revenue officers from all the eight zones to recover property tax from such landowners under section 132(1) of Municipal Act 1956. He said the officials should ensure that the applicants seeking to obtain no objection certificate (NOC) from the Building Permission department to carry out construction works in their empty lands must have cleared all their tax dues.



Now zone offices will issue new shop licenses

Raipur, October 28, 2010

Now, the businessmen would not have to go to municipal head office to obtain new shop license as the provision would be available at all zonal offices. The businessmen can also renew their license at their respective zonal office. The municipal Commissioner Om Prakash Choudhary on Thursday informed that the decision was taken for convenience of the businessmen and to decentralise some of the administrative works that could be comfortably done at zonal level.



YC, NSUI gherao CTBC office

In protest against removal of photos of great leaders from schools

Announce to launch state-wide agitation

Raipur, October 28, 2010

Deploring the decision to remove photos of some of the great leaders from the schools, the Youth Congress (YC) and National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) on Thursday noon gheraoed the office of Chhattisgarh Text Book Corporation (CTBC). Both the organisations alleged that the BJP-led state government was biased and had deliberately insulted the great leaders by asking the CTBC to remove their photos from the schools. The police detained 61 workers of both YC and NSUI who attempted to gatecrash the CTBC office during their aggressive protest.
The president of YC Parliament Raipur Vinod Tiwari informed that the CTBC had replaced the photos of Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajeev Gandhi and Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel with Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Pt Deendayal Upadhyay. “We will not tolerate the government’s partial attitude and launch a state-wide protest unless all the photos that have been removed are placed in the schools again,” he said.
The protesting workers were led by state presidents of YC and NSUI Uttam Vasudev and Sanjeev Shukla respectively and YC Parliament Raipur president Vinod Tiwari.
Among the 61 detained workers included Subodh Haritwal, Sushil Agrawal, Indrajeet Singh, Sunil Kukreja, Ashish Dubey, Satnarayan Thakur, Neelkamal Gilhare, Alok Chandrakar, Rupesh Thakur and Sonu Sharma.



Mayors’ meet was fruitful: Nayak

Raipur, October 28, 2010

The 99th meeting of executive committee of All India Mayor’s Council in Shimla from October 24-25 was fruitful and we unanimously decided that the municipal corporations should get full power from their respective state governments to implement the concepts and ideas effectively. The information about the mayors’ meeting was given by Mayor Kiranmayi Nayak who informed that the main agenda of the council was -implementation and position of 74th Constitutional amendment regarding urban bodies. Besides, several other aspects including implementation of solid waste management system were also discussed in the meeting, she said.