Nalgonda: Ward committees remain non-functional

Nalgonda: The idea of the government to form ward committees in municipalities is good but confined to papers only in the erstwhile Nalgonda district.

The government established ward-wise development committees in the municipalities for the development of towns in a proper manner, with the active involvement of committee members.

The government had established ward wise development committees in February last year. Of the four development committees of a ward, each committee consists of 15 members including senior citizens, youth, women and noted persons. All these members must discuss ward problems in order to make suitable suggestions for town development.

It came to know that not a single meeting was convened by the officials concerned since the committees formed and issues in the wards were piling day by day.

For example, Miryalaguda municipality has 48 wards and 128 ward development committees were formed with 11,520 members. In some wards, committees became nominal due to politics and in some, committees became inactive due to officials' negligence.

Ward councilors reportedly inducted the names of persons of their choice in the committees in view of their political needs.

Speaking to the media, Congress town president and former councilor of Miryalaguda town said that Miryalaguda municipality failed to develop on all fronts. Poor sanitation, overflowing of drains in some places, encroachments of government lands in Indiramma Colony, non-development of infrastructure as per the expansion of town, reflects the inefficient functioning of the council headed by TRS representatives. Not a single meeting of ward committees was conducted by municipal officials since its formation, he pointed out.

Speaking to The Hans India, BJP councilor Shyam stated that plastic ban was implemented only for three months in the town and plastic usage was restarted due to lack of officials' monitoring. People were facing drinking water problem with wrong design of pipelines.

CPM councilor Ghani stated that the functioning of municipality is average and after a gap of a year due to corona, municipal meetings were being conducted regularly for the past few months. He alleged that the role of ward development committees was nominal.

Speaking to The Hans India, Miryalaguda Municipal commissioner Ravindra Sagar stated that the works in the town are being carried as per the recommendations made by the council members during meetings. Admitting that they were not conducting of meetings of ward development committees, he informed that ward officials and municipal staff were gathering information about various problems in the wards and taking up development activities accordingly.

The involvement of ward development committees is same as Miryalaguda municipality in Nalgonda, Nakrekal, Chityal, Chandur, Halia, and Sagar in Nalgonda district, Kodad, Huzurnagar, Tirumalagiri and Suryapet in Suryapet district, and Bhongir, Mothkur, Choutuppal, Pochampally, Aler and Yadagirigutta in Yadadri-Bhongir district municipalities.