VIJAYAWADA: With the new government taking charge, officials of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) are again mulling to prepare proposals for securing ‘greater status’ tag for the civic body.A ground-level survey in this regard is likely to be conducted by the VMC officials for increasing the number of divisions from 59 to 105 based on the population and merging outlying villages into the city limits.
With the municipal elections likely to be held in September, the civic body officials recently prepared a voter list of 7.78 lakh people in three Assembly constituencies in the city and forwarded it to the Election Commission for approval.
With the change of guard in the State administration, the civic body officials are hoping to go for the elections with the ‘greater status’ tag and are setting the ground for it. However, majority of the 59 divisions don’t have requisite population required for the tag as per the guidelines of the Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) department, official sources claimed.
With reports of irregularities coming to light in the voter list prepared by officials for the municipal elections, Mayor Koneru Sreedhar met the then special chief secretary R Karikal Valaven a week ago and submitted a representation urging him to direct the officials concerned to prepare a detailed list of voter without any errors as the tenure of TDP rule in VMC will end within a month’s time.
Responding to the plea, Karikal Valaven ordered the officials concerned to prepare a vote list to ensure population of at least 10,000 in each division and increase the number of divisions from 59 to 105 for achieving the ‘greater status’ tag.
When contacted, Municipal Commissioner M Rama Rao said that process for achieving ‘greater status’ for VMC started two years ago. As part of it, the civic body officials held talks with 53 village panchayats around the city seeking to merge them with the corporation. Out of the total 53 panchayats, 48 have given their nod for merger with Vijayawada after being assured by officials of all-round development.
However, the process did not move further due to delay in discussing the matter in the Cabinet meeting during the TDP rule.“Once again, the ‘greater status’ tag for VMC has surfaced as the MA&UD is firm on taking the matter to the notice of the new government and keep the same as agenda in the Cabinet meeting,” Rao said.