Doiwala to be upgraded to first class municipal council
By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 9 Aug: Finally, the government has declared the dates for the municipal elections in the state. The civic polls will be held in the last week of October. Besides this, the government has also taken certain other decisions regarding the Urban Local Bodies. Sources claim that that the government has decided to upgrade Almora and Pithoragarh Municipal Councils to the level of Municipal Corporations (Nagar Nigams). Besides this, the government has also decided to upgrade the current grade three level of Municipal Council to grade one level in Doiwala.
It may be reminded here that the Urban Development Minister Prem Aggarwal is the BJP MLA from Doiwala. It may also be recalled that Uttarakhand High Court is hearing a PIL filed regarding the delay in holding the Municipal elections in Uttarakhand.
The municipal bodies completed their 5 year term in December, 2023. Since then, the bodies are under the control of administrators.
Sources added that the government has accelerated preparations keeping the newly finalised timeline to hold the elections. All preparations from OBC reservation to delimitation of bodies, etc., are underway and are likely to be completed before 15 September.
In addition, an important pending issue is the delimitation of wards for the election in the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun. The delimitation is to be done of the wards, but the preliminary delimitation exercise was not found to be satisfactory by the government. It may be recalled that population is the chief criterion behind the delimitation exercise of constituencies or wards but it becomes difficult in the absence of the 2021 Census. The last Census carried out in the country was in 2011 and, thereafter, the decisions are taken on the basis of projections only. With regard to the preliminary exercise of delimitation in Dehradun, major objections were raised on 54 out of 100 wards because, here, the increase in population when compared to time of last elections was found to be uneven. Once the preparations are completed on or before 15 September, a letter will be sent to the State Election Commission to declare and hold the elections.
At the same time, the government has also accelerated the exercise to make Almora and Pithoragarh municipal corporations before the elections and also to upgrade the Doiwala Council.
Municipal elections will be held in the last week of October. Before this, the work on rules, etc., on implementing OBC reservation will be completed by September 15. The work on delimitation of bodies, updating of voter lists is likely to be completed before the deadline of 15 September.
Secretary, Urban Development, Nitesh Jha said that preparations have been intensified to conduct civic elections within the stipulated time frame. The government has given clear instructions that the delimitation of 54 wards of Dehradun Municipal Corporation should be sent to the government after corrections within 15 days. The work on OBC reservation and updating the voters lists will also be completed within this time frame, so that there is no hindrance in the civic elections.
The Government now plans to complete the elections and constituting the boards before Diwali which falls on 29 October, this year.
A letter has been sent to the District Magistrates from the government level to convert Almora and Pithoragarh into municipal corporations. The entire proposal regarding demarcation has to be sent to the government by the DM to convert these bodies into corporations. It is believed that the government will make them corporations before the elections. On the other hand, there will be some changes in the delimitation of Municipalities of Ramnagar and Karnaprayag. Some areas will be added and some others might be removed. At present, Uttarakhand has 9 Municipal Corporations, namely Dehradun, Haridwar, Roorkee, Haldwani, Rishikesh, Srinagar, Kotdwar, Kashipur and Rudrapur. After the upgradation of Almora and Pithoragarh, the total number of Nagar Nigams in the state will go up to 11. The number of municipal councils will be 41 and the number of Nagar Panchayats will be 50.
The government had recently approved the amendment in the Act to implement OBC reservation in wards as well. Now preparations are on to implement the rules to implement this amendment. The proposal of the rules will be brought before the upcoming cabinet meeting, so that OBC reservation can be implemented within the stipulated time frame.
