Chandrashekhar unveils plan to decentralise Nagpur civic body

Chandrashekhar unveils plan to decentralise Nagpur civic body
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NAGPUR, JUNE 20: Municipal Commissioner T Chandrashekhar today announced an ambitious plan to decentralise NMC operations and delegate more powers to zonal offices to deal with civic problems effectively.

According to him, these zonal offices would now act as `mini corporations', dealing and acting on problems of common people without they being referred to the NMC central office.

The officers heading these zonal offices or `ward offices', would be empowered to collect tax and carry tax assessment, redress civic problems pertaining to drinking water, sewerage, sanitation, street lighting etc, besides undertaking minor repairs and maintenance works. These officials for the first time will be empowered to take action against encroachers and illegal structures.

``While sharing the powers of assessment and tax collection, the ward officers will also share responsibility to ensure that no encroachments or illegal structures come up in their jurisdiction,'' Chandrashekhar told newspersons today. According to him, the modalities for selecting staff for these offices and other administerial formalities will be finalised soon.

According to Chandrashekhar, he noticed that majority of grievances which people take up to him, could be solved at these ward office level. It was therefore essential to empower officials to take action and solve problems, he said. The ward office in-charges, to be posted from among deputy engineers, will report directly to the Commissioner. ``For any lapse or irregularities in the wards, the respective ward officers will be held responsible and action will be taken against them,'' he added.

Besides empowering the ward officers, the Commissioner said he has also delegated powers of approving housing plans to Executive Engineers with a ceiling of plots upto 10,000 square feet in area.

With nearly 10,500 employees on its roles, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation is one of the adequately staffed civic body, he said, but added that the major problem he felt was the lack of coordination among departments and lack of supervision over the employees. The Commissioner issued orders today asking departmental heads to prepare a report on the number of employees, their nature of work and the period of their posting.

Meanwhile, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is gearing up to face the Monsoons. Chandrashekhar informed that a Control Room was being set up at the Central Office, which will act on any complaints of emergencies arising during the rainy season.

A team of 30 employees drawn from various departments, headed by an executive engineer, will man the Control Room in each shift. The Control Room will operate in three shifts and will deal with complaints pertaining to inundation of localities, tree collapse, sewerage, garbage and sanitation problems etc.

The telephone numbers of the Nagpur Fire Service, 101 and 533333 have been provided to the Control Room and people in distress should ring on the above numbers to seek help, Chandrashekhar said.

The NMC is also taking up assessment of new and old properties in a major way and more than 300 employees will begin house-to-house survey beginning June 22, he said. The NMC also intends to take help of graduates to assist them in the work. The Tax teams will conduct on the spot assessment of properties and issue special tax notices to owners. Any objection on the tax assessment will have to be lodged before 30 days, Chandrashekhar said.

The NMC has not undertaken assessment of properties for the last 13 years, which has caused severe loss of resources, the Commissioner said.