Tumkur, Shimoga and Bijapur cities to be upgraded as Municipal Corporations

The State government has decided to upgrade the municipal councils (CMCs) of Tumkur, Shimoga and Bijapur to city corporations, Minister for Urban Development Vinay Kumar Sorake has said.

Addressing the press here on Monday, he said a Cabinet note is prepared to upgrade the three CMCs to city corporations.

The previous BJP government upgraded the Tumkur CMC as City Corporation but the Karnataka High Court had quashed the formation of the corporation in April 2011 on the grounds that the city did not have the requisite population. The Government would decide on upgrading these CMCs into corporations based on Census 2011 figures. The court had also directed the Government to consider the Census figures, he said.

The Government gave the status of a corporation to Tumkur City after the city’s population crossed three lakhs. The High Court found that the declared population of Tumkur is less than three lakh as per Census 2001.

KMC Act

As per Section 3 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (KMC) Act 1976 it is mandatory that the population of the area, to be declared as a corporation, should be not less than three lakh.

The population of Tumkur was about 2.48 lakh as per the Census 2001 and the previous BJP Government had declared it as a city corporation assuming that the presentpopulation exceeds three lakh.

Noting the achievements of the department in the first 100 days of the Congress government, Mr Sorake said during the transition phase of Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), 61 projects with estimated cost of Rs 5,265.22 crore were approved by the state level sanctioning committee and forwarded to Ministry of Urban Development for its consideration, Mr Sorake said.

JNNURM projects were being implemented in Mysore and Bangalore cities.

Seventeen water supply projects with estimated cost of Rs 711.92 crore were approved and submitted to the Central Government under Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT), the minister said.

The State Cabinet approved the guidelines formulated to use Rs 700 crore Urban Infrastructure Development Fund proposed to raise from financial institution for funding part of the project cost of urban local bodies under Karnataka water and Sanitation Pooled Fund Trust, he said.