Fifty per cent of the 150 divisions of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation will be reserved for women henceforth.
Reservation of seats for Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, Backward Classes and women would forthwith be fixed for two consecutive terms rather than changing the allocation for every election on rotation basis.
The schedule and date of the election will be decided by the State Election Commission in concurrence with the State government.
Amendments have been made to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955, to facilitate the changes.
The amendments include mandatory allocation of 10% of budget for green initiatives and fixing responsibility on ward/division members and nodal officers to survival rate of 85 per cent of the total plantations.
The Legislative Assembly on Tuesday passed the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (amendment) Act, 2020. Piloting the Bill in the House, Municipal Administration Minister K. T. Rama Rao said the decision to fix reservations for two terms had been made to ensure continuity and focused approach towards development.
The amendment was made with retrospective effect from 2016 and hence, the same reservation pattern would continue for the forthcoming elections to GHMC.
Subsequent polls
“Reservations will be decided afresh from the subsequent election to the GHMC,” he said.
He recalled that the Telangnaa Rashtra Samithi government had implemented 50% quota for women through an executive order in the past GHMC elections and this was being followed by the legislation now. “In fact, the TRS fielded 79 women in the past elections and ensured their victory,” he said.
In addition to the amendments, the government was committed to putting in place participatory democracy in the functioning of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and hence, it was decided to constitute four ward/division level committees comprising women, youth, senior citizens and eminent citizens.
These committees would be apolitical and would meet every three months to discuss the developments in their areas.
The advices/suggestions given by these committees with 25 members each would be discussed at the Council meetings and would be appropriately adopted. “This will be a people’s army of 15,000 covering various aspects of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) development. These committees are aimed at ensuring participatory development,” he said.
The committees were envisaged to put a check on illegal constructions, encroachments and consumption of plastics besides furthering green initiatives.
“They will not, however, intrude on the functioning of the corporators,” he averred.
Replying to a query by CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka on the 33% quota for BCs, he said the government would take steps to ensure that the 33% quota would not be disturbed. Asked about the Building Regularisation Scheme, he said the government had received 1.13 lakh applications so far, but the process was stopped after the High Court imposed a stay.
“We are trying our best to vacate the stay at the earliest,” he said.
