The district administration has sent three proposals to the State government for the creation of 11 town panchayats, two Town Municipal Councils and merging eight villages with Udupi city to create Greater Udupi City Municipal Council in Udupi district.
As per the proposal sent by the District Urban Development Cell at the Deputy Commissioner’s office, eight villages are proposed to be merged with Udupi Municipal Council. These villages with their populations in brackets are: Yembattu Badagabettu (9,309), Ambalapady (2,054), Kediyoor (4,639), Kadekar (4,720), Kuthpady (3,434), Alevoor (6,302), Korangrapady (4,944) and Udyavar (11,854).
The proposal for the formation of Brahmavar Town Municipal Council includes the merger of villages such as Chantar and Heroor (10,290), Varambally (6,809), and Harady-Kumragodu and Matapady (6,884).
While the proposal for the creation of Kaup Town Municipal Council includes the merger of Muloor and Padu villages from Kaup Gram Panchayat, Uliyargoli village, and Mallur village.
The population of these four villages taken together is 21,887.
The 11 town panchayats which have been proposed are: Kukkundur (13,180), Shirva (13,390), Koteshwar (14,697), Uppunda (11,495), Gangolli (13,014), Shiroor (17,432), Perdoor (10,957), Nitte (12,354), Padubidri (12,958), Udyavar (12,267) and Hebri (11,071).
According to V. Prasanna, Project Director of District Urban Development Cell, the proposal for the creation of the Greater Udupi City Municipal Council was sent to the government three months ago while that of the two town municipal councils was sent two months ago and the proposal for the creation of 11 town panchayats, even earlier.
OpposedThe creation of Greater Udupi has already run into trouble as the Bharatiya Janata Party has opposed the proposal on the grounds that there was massive staff shortage in the City Municipal Council, hence, there was no point in enlarging it.
Mr. Prasanna said that a concurrence of the council was a must to enlarge it.
More grantsIf the government accepted the proposal to convert 11 gram panchayats into town panchayats, they would get more grants.
Presently a gram panchayat gets about Rs. 50 lakh annually and has a staff strength of 10. But if it became a town panchayat, its grants will go up to Rs. 4.5 crore annually with a staff strength of 26.
A town municipal council gets an annual grant of Rs. 9 crore and has a staff strength of 96.
An official in the department said that it was difficult that all the proposals sent by the District Urban Development Cell will get a nod as it would place a huge financial burden on the State government.
“But some places such as Kaup, Brahmavar, Hebri, and Padubidri require to be upgraded as they were urbanizing faster. There were clear cut bylaws for construction of multi-storied buildings in the Municipal Act, which was not the case in Gram Panchayat Act,” the official said.
