CHENNAI: Administrative control over thousands of rural and urban local bodies will now come under Special Officers, till the civic polls, now mired in legal tangles, are held to elect the new set of representatives. This has been necessitated as the term of the chiefs of local bodies got over on Monday.
The Municipal Administration and Rural Development Departments on Monday notified the appointment of special officers to urban and rural local bodies including municipal corporations, municipalities, town panchayats, district panchayats, panchayat unions, and village panchayats.
“The notification will come into force from October 25,” reads the notifications issued by Municipal Administration secretary Phanindra Reddy and Rural Development secretary Hans Raj Verma.
These special officers would hold the office to discharge the functions of the local bodies until the day on which the first meeting of the local bodies are held or up to December 31 - whichever is earlier.
Commissioners of Municipal Corporations would be the special officers of the respective corporations while commissioners of the municipalities would be the special officers of the respective municipalities.
Assistant Directors and Executive Officers of town panchayats would be the special officers of the two categories of town panchayats.
The Block Development Officers of respective panchayat unions would act as special officers of the respective village panchayats. Similarly, Additional Director/ Additional Collector/Joint Director/Project Director of District Rural Development Agencies of the respective districts would be special officers of the 31 district panchayats. The Assistant Director (panchayats) and Assistant Director (Audit) of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department of the respective districts would be special officers of the panchayat unions.
On October 19, Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao promulgated two ordinances for appointing special officers to local bodies, elections to which were postponed after Madras High Court quashed the State Election Commission’s notifications. The elections were scheduled for October 17 and 19.
In its order on October 5, the High Court had quashed the two notifications issued by the SEC for conducting elections to the local bodies in two phases, and directed it to complete the election process by December 31 by issuing fresh notifications. The court also directed that special officers be appointed till the elections are held.
Appointment of special officers to local bodies is being done after two long decades. The Chennai Corporation remained under the control of special officers for about 23 years from November 1973 to October 1996 after the council was dissolved following the muster roll scandal.
fact file
District
panchayats | 31
Panchayat
unions | 388
Village
panchayats | 12,524
Total rural local
bodies| 12,943
Municipal
corporations | 12
Municipalities | 124
Town
panchayats | 524
Total urban
local bodies | 664