Kota Srinivas Poojary, MLC, said on Monday that the State government should let the 260 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have their own helplines so that the people could register their complaints on civic issues.
Addressing presspersons here, Mr. Poojary said there were 260 ULBs in the State, including 112 town municipal councils, 57 city municipal councils and 91 town panchayats.
These ULBs had their own helplines earlier to which people would call. But now, the government has given most of the maintenance of facilities such as street lamps and others, to various agencies.
Since these agencies are mostly based in Bengaluru, people have to call them to register their complaints. Further, these agencies have little knowledge of the local area.
Sometimes there is no response even after three days, he said.
The government should rescind its move on this issue and take immediate steps to fill the vacant posts of staff in ULBs as most of them are working at half their strength. The government should increase the grants being provided to the ULBs, he said.
He added that singing of ‘nada geete’ and the national anthem should be made compulsory during the general body meetings of the ULBs as had been made for the general body meetings of gram panchayats, taluk panchayats and zilla panchayats.
Sports tournament
Mr. Poojary said a sports tournament was being organised for the members of gram panchayats, taluk panchayats and zilla panchayats of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts at Kota near Udupi on September 28.
Dinaker Babu, president of the Udupi Zilla Panchayat, and Satyananda Nayak, taluk panchayat member, were present.
‘Govt. has entrusted the maintenance of facilities to
agencies based in Bengaluru’
