Following is the text of the letter received from Smt Kathyayini Chamaraj, Executive Trustee, CIVIC Bangalore, following the recent finalisation of the updated Ward Committee rules:
Dear friends,
Please find attached (click here to read) the latest and final Ward Committee Rules pulished on 22.6.16. With this, all of you can start demanding that BBMP constitute the ward committees for each ward with a total of ten members with 3 women, 2 SC/ST members, 2 local associations and any three other members. Please make sure the Committees meet every month and put up the minutes and resolutions in the ward office. The Ward Committee meetings are open to the public and RWA members should make it a point to attend them. You can only observe the meetings but cannot intervene. Your grievances can be submitted to the Councillor one week before the meeting. You can videograph the meetings. The Secretary of the Ward Committee has to provide an Action Taken Report next month on resolutions of previous meetings. This is the best opportunity to make your councillor and officials accountable to the community they are supposed to seerve. Please make use of the opportunity.
With best regards,
Kathyayini Chamaraj
Executive Trustee
97318 17177
CIVIC Bangalore
#6 Kasturi Apts.
35/23 Langford Road Cross
Shanthinagar
Bangalore 560025
Telefax: 080-41144126
info@civicspace.in
www.civicspace.in
As stated in the letter, the citizens can now hope for a larger say in the goings on in their wards, if they put to use the new provisions, than has been the case so far, leading to every kind of "akrama" being thrust on them.
Hope this leads to deepening our democratic processes.
Muralidhar Rao
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Pl circulate revised ward committee rules
Attachment of rules did not open at 'here' above. Kindly reload.
We need to start a post card movement to the Mayor to start the process of forming ward committees without further delay with emphasis on 'bottom to top' approach. Foundation is laid at ground level and not from the top floor. Invariably WCs are loaded with followers of the corporator and area MLAs. This has to be opposed and there must be transparency and accountability in this process.
Vasanthkumar Mysoremath
serious lacuna
Amid concerns raised by civic activists about the interference of councillors in the proposed ward committees, Mayor G. Padmavathi on Wednesday asked the councillors to recommend 10 names from their ward for the respective committees within 10 days.
At the council meeting, she told the councillors that the High Court had set a deadline for constituting the committees which the BBMP was liable to stick to.
However, civic activists are concerned that such a move will result in councillors choosing their “cronies”, thus defeating the purpose of the ward committees.
Kathyayini Chamaraj, executive trustee of CIVIC Bangalore, said the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Act, 2011 was silent on the process of nomination and had no provisions to keep out politicisation of the committee. “It just says that the BBMP has to nominate 10 persons, without any details on how the selection has to be made,” she said. “We had sought a democratic process by calling applications, scrutinising them, calling for objections, and setting up a committee of noted citizens to select the best among the lot. Sadly, this was not done.”
For the full text of the report (emphasis added by me) in The Hindu, click here.
This is a serious lacuna. Perhaps, the Civil Society needs to join hands together in demanding a proper procedure for constituting the Ward Committees.