The New Indian Express 23.12.2009
GHMC corporators’ special meet today
HYDERABAD: The Council Hall of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) in the head office complex is getting a facelift in view of the first ordinary meeting of the newly-elected council of GHMC to be held on January 18.
This has been decided by Mayor B. Kartika Chandra Reddy after holding consultations with GHMC Commissioner MT Krishna Babu and other senior officials.
Vacant spaces available in the council hall are being filled with temporary chairs to accommodate 150 corporators and 65 ex officio members comrising MPs, MLAs and MLCs. Existing bulbs are being replaced with new ones and the building is getting painted. After the swearing-in by the corporators and the election of mayor and deputy mayor, which was held at Jubilee Hall in the Public Gardens, the new council is required to meet in a month’s time.
A few days ago the Telugu Desam corporators submitted a representation to the mayor, urging her to convene the meeting immediately to discuss the various civic and adminstrative matters. They brought to her notice that sanitation, water supply and sewerage, streetlights, spread of vector-borne diseases like dengue, chikunguniya and malaria, bad roads needed urgent attention of the corporation.
A special meeting of corporators will be held on December 23 to discuss the modalities for election of chairpersons of ward committees. Previously, there was a chairperson for 10 wards. Now there will be one for 15 wards.
Thus, there will be 15 ward committees and as many chairpersons now. These chairpersons constitute members of the Standing Committee.
The meeting will also discuss the constitution of Area Committees as mandated in the amended HMC Act.
GHMC authorities are busy renovating the old council hall for accommodating 210 members. The engineering wing has come up with a proposal needing a Rs 60-lakh budget to restructure the Council Hall by dismantling the walls and creating more space for increasing the seating capacity in a temporary measure.
As a permanent measure the corporation has a plan to build a 15-storeyed office-cum-council complex on the Lower Tank Bund Road behind Indira Park. Construction of new building, which is to cost about Rs 50 crore, is going to be delayed by a few more years in view of the fund crunch. Hence the decision to make best use of the existing facility.
