The ward councillors of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) on Wednesday boycotted the first half of the Board meeting as a mark of protest against the delimitation proposal passed recently and also on the salary increment issue. They said that despite of sending letters to District Administration officials, no concrete action has been taken yet on delimitation plan.
The elected representatives even opined that if ministers are entitled for getting salary hike then they too must be covered under appraisal benefit plan and must get other perks accordingly.
Deputy Mayor, Sanjiv Vijayawargia said, “In spite of having constitutional powers, at present, we are helpless. Delimitation plan must be cancelled at any cost. Earlier, for around 22 years, solely Administrative Heads controlled the activities of the Civic Body until free and fair election in 2008 was conducted.”
The officials assured the ward councillors that a letter will be send to CM Raghubar Das requesting cancellation of delimitation plan. Only after the intervention of the Municipal Corporation’s officials, the Board meeting resumed.
In the midst of protest, the Board meeting was also attended by Rajya Sabha (RS) MP, Mahesh Poddar and Ranchi MP, Ram Tahal Choudhary alongwith the other officials. Poddar during the meeting asked all the elected representatives to firmly stand for their rights guaranteed to them by the Indian Constitution irrespective of any circumstance. He also instructed the CEO and other officers to ensure proper representation of all elected members in taking major decisions.
Notably, 18 rights have been covered up in the Indian Constitution for holistic development of Urban local Bodies (UlBs). Showing discontentment on different civic issues and taking up the matter of ‘Smart City’ inaugural ceremony, Mayor Asha lakra, the Deputy Mayor and ward councillors said that several times their rights have been abridged deliberately by the administrative heads.
Meanwhile, Municipal Commissioner, Shantanu Kumar Agrahari said, “We are capable of doing civic management work as civic execution tasks have been assigned to different agencies. As far as Smart City project is concerned all the work under the programme is being carried out as per the guidelines of Ministry of Urban Development and Planning under Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) programme.”