The recent order of Department of Urban Development and Planning to constitute five different sub-committees at each ward to streamline the basic civic services within a week is likely to linger further considering the lackluster approach of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) offcials.
Despite receiving orders from the Urban Development department in the first week of November to ensure the constitution of sub-committees in a designated time, no serious attempts have been made to take up the plan as per the order. Notably, during a review meeting, the Urban Development Department Secretary had instructed the Civic Body officials to ensure the formation of sub-committees by November 20 in every ward.
These sub-committees includes water supply, tax collection sub-committee for addressing water crisis issue including assisting the ward heads in tax-collection, self-employment sub-committee for reviewing the work of NGOs, sanitation sub-committee for monitoring the status of cleanliness, civic facilities sub-committee for aiding the civic body team in removing encroachment, collecting house tax etc. and ward welfare committee for speeding up the task of social welfare work.
Also, as per the order, besides forming the teams, the ward councilors have to ensure that the names and mobile numbers of selected representatives for each committee are made public. However, quite a number of ward councilors said that by far they have not yet received any notification from the Municipal Corporation regarding the formulation of the sub-committees.
“We are yet to receive the guidelines from RMC about the constitution of sub-committees. Presently, only one committee ‘Swacchta Committee’ comprising six members exists in most of the wards. Only after receiving the official notification from the Municipal Corporation, the work of constituting five sub-committees can be initiated,” said ward councilor, Arun Kumar Jha.
With Swacchta Sarvekshan-2018 round the corner and upcoming municipal election scheduled in March 2018, a few ward councilors also opined that following the timeline, if the municipal election will be held in March then hardly a month is remaining with them to take up the new projects considering the code of conduct execution norms.
Deputy Mayor, Sanjiv Vijayawargia said, “Within few days, all the ward councilors will form the team as per the instructions. Ward supervisors have been made responsible for this. Instruction has been issued recently to speed up the work.” However, the Deputy Mayor failed to cite the exact number of wards where the sub-committees have been formed.
Meanwhile, defending the laid-back approach of the Municipal Corporation in taking up the projects on time, RMC officer (PR), Naresh Kumar Sinha said that the civic body is trying hard to ensure the formulation of sub-committee at each ward by November end.
“On November 19, a letter regarding this has been sent. Ward supervisors have been appointed as the member secretary and will ensure the formulation of the sub-committees at each ward at the earliest. All the ward supervisors have been asked to submit a consolidated report on this matter within two days,” Sinha added.