HUBLI: The Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC), the third city in the country after Hyderabad and Visakapatanam selected for preparing the City Development Strategy (CDS) funded by Cities Alliance, Washington, has begun the process of forming citizens' committees.

The corporation has issued an initial notification for formation of committees and has invited applications from people interested in the development of the twin cities.

According to guidelines chalked out for the formation of the committees, each committee will have nine members belonging to specific age groups, including four senior citizens. The committees will have one member each in the age group of 18-22, 23-28, 29-35, 36-45 and 46-60 years. Four members will be of 61 years and above.

One-third of the representation in these committees would be for women. There would be one committee for all polling booths in the twin cities and one person from these committees would be elected by the members themselves to represent them at the zonal committee.

People's participation

According to P. Manivannan, Commissioner, HDMC, the City Development Strategy (CDS) has a potential to lay down the blueprint for development of the city for the next twenty years and act as a document for the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

Once the citizens' committees were formed they would have a say in the CDS and in prioritising strategies for the city's comprehensive development, he said.

Members of the committee, apart from creating civic awareness and assisting the Corporation in civic matters, would monitor projects in their areas. It is also proposed to give more powers to the committees such as overseeing and assessing all development and planning activities in their respective areas, preparing monthly feedback from respective wards and also internal assessment of electoral, tax and other areas.

Advisory committee

To assist the corporation in forming the committees, a "Citizen Advisory Committee" has been formed by, headed by former Vice-Chancellor of Mangalore University M.I. Savadatti.

This advisory committee would supervise the formation and functioning of the committees and zonal committees.

It would identify the activities of corporation where citizen participation was essential and define the outline of participation of the committees.

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