Puducherry: Civic polls were held in Union Territory between June and July last after a gap of 38 years. The functionaries of the five municipal councils (Puducherry, Oulgaret, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam), the ten Commune panchayats (five each in Puducherry and Karaikal districts) and 98 village panchayats were elected and they all took charge in July.

Although the dream to elect local bodies has become a reality, the administrative and financial powers for the newly constituted institutions, however, remain out of bounds for them.

Pattali Makkal Katchi Parliamentary Party leader M. Ramadoss has urged the Government to devolve the powers to the civic bodies. He also referred to the recent decision of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi to appoint a high-level committee to recommend more powers for the civic bodies.

Mr. Ramadoss said that the administration should shed its inertia and ensure that the civic bodies had full and constitutionally allotted subjects and authorities to handle the programmes.

He said that elected bodies should not remain mere figureheads or ornamental pieces.

A total of 1,138 representatives were elected through the three-phased polls for the municipalities, commune and village panchayats.

A federation of village panchayat presidents headed by M. Jagannathan had also urged the President and the Prime Minister to intervene in the issue of devolution of powers for the civic bodies without delay.

There was a complaint from one of the young councillors of Oulgaret Municipality that they did not even have the powers to approve of an application for old age pension. There was also a slew of representations from the councillors sometime back to the Union Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar during his visit to Puducherry that the powers and subjects specifically earmarked in the Constitution should be devolved to the newly formed civic bodies.

Mr. Aiyar assured them that he would depute first a team of high-ranking officials for parleys with the councillors as well as other stakeholders.

The PMK Member of Parliament had called for a special session of Assembly to amend if necessary the municipal legislations to sanction powers to local bodies.

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