‘Puttur, Ullal to be upgraded’

Elected bodies in Puttur and Ullal Town Municipal Corporations will be dissolved as the towns will have a City Municipal Council, said the Minister of State for Urban Development Vinay Kumar Sorake.

Talking to reporters here on the sidelines of an event recently, Mr. Sorake said that the dissolution of the councils, the upgrade and fresh elections will be conducted soon.

“The time to raise objections to the proposals is underway.

There is two months’ time and after that, the reorganisation will start,” he said.

The two towns in the district are among 10 others in the State that will be upgraded to a city municipal council.

The main criterion for a city municipal council is to have a population greater than 50,000.

According to the 2011 census Puttur has 53,061 people risen from a population of 48,070 as tabulated in the 2001 census.

Ullal has a population of 53,773, which has risen from 49,862 in the period.

A new council will be elected and the commissioner’s post will be filled and additional staff will be recruited in the formal upgrade, he said.

Wards will also be rearranged to encompass a greater area, he said. After a delay of more than a year and a half, Puttur town municipal corporation had elected N. Jagadish Shetty, a rebel Congress member, as its president on October 1.

There is also a provision to convert town panchayats, whose population has crossed 10,000, to a town municipal council and Mr. Sorake said the department was against it.

Over 160 towns across the State qualified for this.

“If we approve all then more than half of the State will be called urban areas. This is not feasible,” he said.