The ruling LDF of the city Corporation is mulling various counter-moves, including legal action, against the State government’s planned carving out of twelve wards from the Corporation area to form the new Kazhakuttam municipality. A decision in this regard is expected after the upcoming district conference of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [ CPI(M)].
Corporation sources say that the issue will be discussed within the party to take stock of the various opinions on the bifurcation plan and to arrive at a common stand on the issue.
Unfair, says CPI(M)
CPI(M) district secretary Kadakampally Surendran said it was unfair on the government’s part to take such a ‘unilateral decision.’
“We certainly plan to take up this issue after discussions. Before arriving at serious decisions such as bifurcation, the least the government should have done was to consult the governing body of the Corporation from which they are carving out the wards. In this case, even their own party members, councillors and some Ministers had information about this decision. The last time delimitation exercise was taken up by the LDF government, we had discussions with the panchayats which were added to the Corporations or Municipalities,” said Mr. Surendran.
Corporation sources point out that the bifurcation virtually nullifies some of the work done in the previous one year, from tax assessments to TC numbering.
“In the previous few months, Corporation employees have spent a lot of time and effort in allocating new TC numbers. The draft of the voter’s list for these wards was also prepared. Self-assessment had also been done for the new houses in these areas. All of this will be rendered useless after this bifurcation and it is a sheer wastage of money too. Depending on the way these wards are carved out, changes might also happen in the remaining wards, thus making it necessary to make changes in the numbering in these areas too,” says the source.
Transitional phase
Though the rules say that an urban local body cannot be converted to a rural body, it does not say anything against changing it to a municipality, which is considered a transitional phase between the two. But this current move is still an example of ‘downgrading’ the wards, says the source.
'TC numbering,
tax assessment
work nullified'
Move will result in the downgrading of bifurcated wards
