In another leap towards constituting ward committees in the city, Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) has invited applications from civil society members willing to become members of such committees.
Commissioner of the corporation Akshy Sridhar issued a public notification in this connection on Thursday.
The civic body also tweeted stating: “As per the Constitution mandate, it is to form ward committees in each ward under the chairmanship of respective ward corporators; hence, application for the ward committees are invited by the Mangaluru City Corporation.”
According to it, the committees will be headed by the councillors of the respective wards. Each committee will have three women members, three members from the general category, one member each from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and two members representing different organisations.
Applications will have to be submitted by November 17, the notification said.
They can be downloaded from the website, www.mangalurucity.mrc.- gov.in . They can be submitted online through e-mail: mccward- commitee@gmail.com .
The hard copies can be submitted in the Surathkal, Central and Kadri zonal offices of the corporation. Civil society members can contact Ph: 0824-2220313 or 2220318 for details. They can contact Surathkal zonal office on Ph: 2220360, Central zonal office Ph: 2220313, and Kadri zonal office Ph: 2951144, the notification said.
All city corporations will have to constitute ward committees under the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Act, 2011. In addition, the Lok Adalat had, on January 4, 2014, also asked Mangaluru City Corporation to constitute the committees. Civil society members had also approached the High Court of Karnataka seeking its intervention to make the civic body constitute ward committees.
With no other way, the council of the city corporation gave its approval for constituting the ward committees in its meeting this August.
Five years ago, the then council led by the Congress had declined to constitute the ward committees. Instead the council had in its October 2014 meeting presided over by the then Mayor Mahabala Marla resolved to constitute a three-member House committee to study the pros and cons of constituting them. The particular House committee did not submit any report to the council.
The BJP, which returned to power after five years, had in its manifesto for the council elections last year promised that it will constitute the ward committees.
