Urban News

Departments from the UT Administration have been transferred to the Municipal Corporation under the 74th constitutional amendment. The notification of the transfer had stated that the staff of the Administration would continue to handle the functions till March 31 next year after which the civic body would have to hire its own staff. The civic body has requested for this time period to be extended. The process of recruitment in the MC has been hitting roadblocks with the councillors demanding that the officials prepare recruitment rules. The issue had arisen when the process of recruitment of Sub-Divisional Engineers were to be done. The recruitment rules are yet to be approved by the House.

With the new departments being transferred, a number of posts would need to be filled. The Mayor also informed the adviser about the recent study tour to Gangtok and Kolkatta by the councillors. She said that they would soon be submitting a report about their observations of the tour. She said that they observed the functioning of the corporations where primary health and primary education are with Municipal Corporation. The civic body has recently been given these two functions. The councillors further observed that the system of Mayor-in-Council was functioning successfully in the corporations. Chatrath says, “The Mayor had the power to write the ACR of the Commissioner. There was no gap between the officials and the elected representatives. The elected representatives had more powers,” she said.

Another observation that was discussed was the system of sanitation. The councillors liked the system of garbage collection at Siliguri where a truck comes every morning to collect garbage from the residential areas.