Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has said that in another 25 days, the State will be free of election mode once the municipal elections are held, and that the government’s entire focus will be on administration.
He was responding to an observation by MIM member Akbaruddin Owaisi that the State seemed to be in election mode with one election after another beginning with Assembly, Parliament and Panchayat Raj elections during a discussion on the Bill to replace the Telangana Municipal Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019, in the Assembly on Thursday.
Introducing the Bill which finalised the number of wards in the municipalities, Mr. Rao said the reservations in wards were also fixed and the State is in the process of conducting municipal elections. Recently, government conducted Panchayat Raj elections and several young people who were elected are eager to give good local governance.
He said that the government had brought many administrative and revolutionary reforms for the benefit of people starting from reorganisation of 10 districts into 33 districts, creation of 5,000 plus administrative units to extend better service to people.
Many panchayats merged into municipalities and municipalities into corporation and there were 142 urban local bodies in the State. Earlier panchayats and municipalities were upgraded through executive orders but the government amended the Act to create new panchayats, municipalities through legislation to stave off litigation from anti-development forces, he said.
He said the State would have 13 more new municipal corporations. The new municipal Act to be passed would check land mafia and illegal layouts in the vicinity of municipalities.
Mr. Akbaruddin supporting the Bill hoped the situation of municipalities which were facing financial crunch would improve, and in Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, road widening works had been pending since 1970. Mr. Rao acknowledging financial difficulties in municipalities, said government would spend over ₹2,000 crore on civic bodies. The Bill was passed in the Assembly without any amendments.
