Panchayat minister wants control of Urban Local bodies

A proposal to bring urban and local bodies under one head has been mooted once again. Mani Shankar Aiyar, Union minister of panchayati raj, has asked for urban local bodies to be put under his ministry “for effective planning to bridge the divide between urban and rural areas’ and “better implementation of schemes like the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (jnnurm)‘. In 1992, Aiyar had proposed the idea but it was shot down as “impractical’.

The present proposal comes after Aiyar’s visit to Pakistan where the delegation interacted with Pakistan’s local government officials on the three-tier model followed there (see box: Governance models).

Experts say the proposal will help urban areas in better implementation of the 74th Amendment that aimed at decentralisation in urban local bodies, which are under the purview of the Union ministry of urban development at present.Decentralisation of rural local bodies under the 73rd Amendment has been effectively implemented. Thus, the proposal, if implemented, will give better participatory rights to migrant population, they say. Continue reading »

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