The local self-government institutions (LSGIs) in the State will soon be declared corruption-free. The new government is on a mission to wipe out corruption from the administrative mechanism. A corruption-free cell will be opened in the Minister’s office, said Minister for Local Self-Governance and Minorities Welfare K.T. Jaleel.
Speaking at an interactive meeting organised by the Malabar Chamber of Commerce in the city on Saturday, he said it was easy to deal with corruption if the public was alert.
Property tax
The Minister maintained that increase in property tax was necessary to strengthen the local bodies, whose main source of income is the tax. He said the tax would go to the own fund of the local bodies and would be used for local development.
He criticised the former government’s policies that burdened the local bodies with additional expenses. The government should have made budgetary allocations for those expenses, he said.
Mr. Jaleel promised that he would convene a meeting of department officials, representatives of organisations like the chamber and the municipal corporation to find out the reason for the delay in acceptance of building plans in the corporation, after Ramadan. He called upon the various development authorities to work in tandem with the engineering wing of the local bodies for smooth development.
Wakf board
The Minister said that there would be 22 fresh appointments to the Wakf Board that was struggling due to the lack of competent officials.
He said that all future appointments to the board would be through the State Public Service Commission, just like that to the Devaswom Board.
Chamber president C. Mohan presided over the meeting. Chamer secretary M.A. Mehaboob submitted a memorandum to the Minister. Former presidents P.K. Ahamed and P.V.Chandran were present.
