With just a couple of months left for existing governing committees of local bodies to complete their term, the Urban Affairs Department is set to organise a file adalat in municipalities and Corporations in June.
At the State level, similar adalats would be held at the Urban Affairs Directorate and the Chief Town Planner’s office making disposal of files a serious agenda for the month.
A.P.M Mohammed Hanish, secretary (LSGD-Urban Affairs), announced the decision to hold such adalats while presiding over a review meeting of central zone municipal corporations held in the city on Monday.
He said that clearing pending files and thereby addressing humanitarian problems would tantamount to implementing a thousand welfare schemes. If not cleared now, the files would remain stacked up for at least another year following elections and the subsequent training of newly inducted people’s representatives.
Mr. Hanish said that municipal corporations would be under the close watch of the Urban Affairs Department in the next few months. The meeting reviewed the progress of approval of projects for the ongoing financial year.
Various schemes available to municipal corporations under projects like the Asian Development Bank-funded Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project, Clean Kerala Company Limited and Suchitwa Mission were discussed in detail.
Mr. Hanish urged chairmen and officials of municipal bodies to keep things moving as the Election Commission and the Delimitation Commission had already shifted to election mode.
He said that the performance of municipal bodies has become a lot more systematic, scientific and a lot better compared to early years of decentralisation.
“But coordination needs to be improved and optimum utilisation of resources has not been fully realised,” Mr. Hanish said.
Mayor Tony Chammany, Urban Affairs Department director P.M. Ali Ashgar Pasha, joint director, P.A. Pius, central zone joint director Sasidharan, KSUDP project director R Girija, Clean Kerala Company managing director Kabeer B Haroon, chief town planner in-charge K. Ramanan were among those present.
This was the first of the three zonal meetings organised by the Urban Affairs Department ahead of the local body elections. The next two would be held in Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram.
