Deccan Chronicle 30.11.2009

Oath-taking to be row-free

Hyderabad, Nov. 29: Unlike the language row in Maharashtra State Assembly, the oath- taking ceremony of the newly-elected corporators of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is going to be multi-lingual and trouble-free.

The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) has asked its corporators to take the oath in the language of their choice.

Ditto is the case with the other parties too. Officials in the GHMC said the corporators could take oath either in Telugu, Hindi, English or Urdu towards which a printed text is being made available.

Meanwhile, newly elected corporators are spending their time by meeting voters in their respective wards and thanking them for their support.

Oath-taking ceremony will be held an hour before the election to the post of mayor on December 4.

The Puranapul corporator, Ms Sri Latha, along with her husband Sunnam Rajmohan has already started listing the civic problems being faced by the people in her ward. On Sunday, the couple went round the ward and prepared a priority list of civic amenities to be attended to by them.

“I am accompanying her because she is new to politics. Once she gets a grasp of things, then she will be on her own,” Rajmohan said. He was the corporator from Puranapul between 2002 and 2007 and his wife contested this time as the ward was reserved for women this time.

According to officials, the previous elected body, in its last general body meeting, unanimously adopted a resolution increasing the monthly honorarium of corporators from Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000. The resolution has been accepted by the government.

Also, the officials are planning to allocate works and projects worth Rs 40 lakh in each of the 150 divisions per year.

A project, which is more than Rs 25 lakh, has to be cleared by corporators themselves, first by the Standing Committee and ultimately by the general body.