The Hindu 27.09.2013
Tumkur, Shimoga, Bijapur CMCs to be upgraded to corporations
The State government has approved the formation of three more city corporations — Tumkur, Bijapur and Shimoga.
This raises the total number of city corporations in the State to 11.
A
meeting of the State Cabinet here on Thursday approved the upgrade of
the existing city municipal councils in these three tier II cities.
They will now be provided a special grant of Rs. 100 crore each for upgrading basic infrastructure, including roads.
Briefing
presspersons on the decisions taken at the meeting, Minister for Law
and Parliamentary Affairs T.B. Jayachandra said the present elected
members of the city municipal councils in the three cities would
continue and the incumbent president and vice-president would be
designated Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
This would be for not more than six months as elections to the municipal councils were held only about six months ago.
The upgrading has been approved as the three cities have a population of more than five lakh.
The
other city municipal corporations in the State are Bangalore, Mysore,
Mangalore, Davangere, Belgaum, Hubli-Dharwad, Gulbarga and Bellary.
Article 371(J)
Sources in the government told
The Hindu
that the Cabinet also informally discussed the reservations to be
provided for the people of the Hyderabad Karnataka districts as
specified under Article 371(J) of the Constitution. The matter has been
pending for quite some time and after the meeting, Chief Minister
Siddaramaiah took it up with senior Ministers, Chief Secretary S.V.
Ranganath and Advocate-General Ravivarma Kumar.
Sources
added that the view is that the recommendations of a Cabinet
subcommittee may attract litigation if implemented in toto. The Cabinet
subcommittee has reportedly suggested reservations for people from the
Hyderabad Karnataka districts in other parts of the State too. The aim
of the constitutional amendment is primarily to serve the backward
districts of Bidar, Gulbarga, Yadgir, Raichur, Koppal and Bellary.
Medical colleges policy
The
Cabinet, at the meeting, also approved the need for formulating a
policy for sanctioning new medical colleges in the State. The government
has been receiving applications for starting new medical colleges, but
most wanted to set up the institutions in Bangalore.
A
cabinet subcommittee was constituted about a week ago under the
chairmanship of Minister for Higher Education R.V. Deshpande to screen
these applications. It was noticed that all the applications received so
far were ineligible with some of them not even having basic
infrastructure to start a medical college, let alone an attached
teaching hospital.
Meanwhile, the government is also
expected to pull up the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences for
recommending the applications without proper scrutiny.
Scheme for OBCs
Mr.
Jayachandra said the Cabinet also approved granting subsidy of not more
than Rs. 2 lakh each to 2,000 members of Other Backward Classes to
purchase taxis. This is similar to the scheme for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes and will cost the government Rs. 40 crore.
The Cabinet also approved starting two Morarji Desai residential schools at Kadur and Mudigere in Chikmagalur district.