A group of organisations came together as a collective here on Wednesday to urge the State government to amend the recently-released Tamil Nadu Urban Local Bodies Ward Committee and Area Sabha Rules to make the ward committees and area sabhas more representative and effective.
While lauding the State government for notifying the rules to form ward committees and area sabhas, the organisations blamed the Municipal Administration department for not conducting any public consultation on the draft rules before notifying them.
Charu Govindan of Voice of People said that none of the recommendations provided by the collective based on the Model Nagara Raj bill of 2006 and best practices from other States were taken into consideration.
The key recommendations of the collective included increased representation of people from the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe, women and other marginalised groups in the nomination of members to the ward committee from the constituent area sabhas.
The organisations said the number of members of a ward committee should not be based on the number of areas in the ward, but on the size of the population in the ratio of one member per 1,000 population.
They said there should be transparency and reflection of the will of the people in the appointment of members to the ward committee. The power to nominate and appoint members to the ward committee should be entrusted with respective area sabhas, they said.
The ward committees should not remain a mere petitioning and grievance reporting body, but one with powers to function effectively and democratically as a core representative of the constituent area sabhas. The functions of the ward committees should at least include preparing of ward development plans, social auditing of projects and schemes, engaging in participatory budgeting, coordination between area sabhas and tracking status and compliance of resolutions passed by area sabhas. The area sabhas should be given same powers and functions as those enjoyed by the gram sabhas in village panchayats.
The organisations said present DMK government that was vocal about decentralisation of powers by the Union government must do the same to the local bodies within the State.
The organisations that are part of the collective included Arappor Iyakkam, Chennai Metropolitan Construction and Unorganised Workers Union, Institute of Grassroots Governance, Thannatchi, Thozhan Iyakkam and Voice of People.
