City set to lose ‘country character’ ahead of MC poll

Chandigarh, May 10
Chandigarh is set to do away with the Panchayati Raj system in the villages located on its periphery, with the UT Administration deciding to merge 13 villages with the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh (MCC) ahead of the 2011 MC elections.
The decision, which will do away with certain Panchayati Raj institutions, including the village panchayat, panchayat samiti and zila parishad, will necessitate the delimitation of the existing 26 wards. However, the Market Committee is likely to be retained with the UT Administration nominating its members. A proposal to increase the wards to 32 or 35 is under the active consideration of the UT Administration, official sources told The Tribune here today.

Pros and cons

* The inclusion of the villages in the MC will curtail the expenditure on such Panchayati Raj institutions as panchayat, panchayat samiti and zila parishad. This money could be utilised for undertaking development works in the villages under the direct supervision of the MC. The decision will bring uniformity in city governance.
* The decision will deliver a death blow to the 73rd Amendment of the Constitution which mandated a three-tier system - panchayats, panchayat samiti and zila parishad - for the areas having rural population. Already there are allegations that the development of the villages under the MC jurisdiction leaves much to be desired.

A blessing in disguise

The inclusion of 13 villages in the MC will be a blessing in disguise for hundreds of villagers, who have built houses outside the ‘lal dora’ in the UT villages in violation of the Punjab Periphery Control Act, 1952. Since the merger of the villages in the MC will convert the rural territory into urban area, the violations outside the ‘lal dora’ could be condoned by the civic body.
The sources said the top brass of the UT Administration, including Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Shivraj Patil, is “favourably inclined” to the proposal of having a uniform system of governance for the city. In fact, senior UT officials had already done the ground work for the delimitation of the MC wards by holding meetings with the officials of the Election Commission for Chandigarh and Delhi.
The UT top brass wants a uniform democratic set-up for the entire city and it is the most appropriate time for the inclusion of the 13 left-over villages into the MC, with elections to the civic body due in December this year. Currently, the MC has nine villages within its jurisdiction of which four were included in the MC limits in 1996 and remaining five in 2006.
Presently, there is a no coordinated development of villages with the MC managing nine villages and panchayats managing the remaining 13.