The Chief Secretary (CS) Utpal Kumar Singh has directed the District Magistrates (DMs) to provide all urban facilities to the rural areas recently merged into urban local bodies. He gave these orders while undertaking a meeting with DMs via video conferencing at state secretariat on Friday. Singh said that the newly added areas in the cities should be worked upon and arrangements for regular sanitation, drinking water supply, road connectivity and other facilities should be done on priority. He added that a work plan for these works should be prepared and submitted to the Urban Development department for approval. The CS also directed the officers to take necessary actions for improving the ranking of their cities in the ongoing Swachch Sarvekshan.
The orders of the CS assume significance as the state government has recently added many villages and peri urban areas in the Urban local bodies like Nagar Palika and Nagar Nigams. The opposition Congress has been vocal against this move and has persistently said that the decision is wrong and politically motivated. It has alleged that the condition of urban areas is very pathetic and adding more areas in city would worsen things.
The meeting was attended by Secretary housing Amit Negi, secretary drinking water Arvind Singh Hyanki, VC of MDDA Ashish Srivastava and others.