The Hindu : `Downgrading will curtail town panchayat powers'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 29, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

`Downgrading will curtail town panchayat powers'

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI Dec. 28. Councillors of town panchayats have urged the Government to keep in abeyance its notice issued for downgrading them village panchayats.

The councillors want the Government to review the decision as ``downgrading will reduce their powers to redress urgent civic grievances or take up development works.''

In a letter to the Chief Minister, M. Anwar Batcha, president, State Town Panchayat Councillors Federation, said the town panchayats were created in 1981 by the late M.G. Ramachandran under the Tamil Nadu District Panchyats Act. But in 1994, following the enactment of the Nagarpalika Act, they turned urban local bodies. Even as the elected members were functioning after the 2001 local bodies polls and before their tenure ended, the Government now issued notice to 536 town panchayats.

The move was being made to get more Central funds under the M.P's development scheme for villages, he claimed.

But the councillors would not be able to solve issues such as drinking water problem, as the exercise would have to go through a three-stage, rural local body set-up. This would delay urgent solutions. Getting birth or death certificates would also be delayed.

Mr. Batcha said proper devolution could improve the finances of the town panchayats, especially if they got the due share from stamp duty, advertisement tax as also devolved grants. Conservancy workers, electricians, plumbers, motor mechanics and vehicle drivers in town panchayats could not be accommodated in village panchayats. There was no word about their fate.

Instead of downgrading town panchayats, some of the bigger town panchayats should be declared municipalities, he said.

The Second State Finance Commission, in its report presented to the Government in May 2001, recommended that 26 town panchayats be regrouped or merged with the same class of urban local bodies or municipalities nearby and that 178 town panchayats be downgraded to make them financially viable.

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Southern States