THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:In a major move ahead of the local body polls, the government has decided to formulate close to 100 new local bodies in the state, including the formation of Kannur Municipal Corporation. In addition, 28 municipalities and 66 grama panchayats will also be formed. The draft proposal in this regard has been approved by the Cabinet and the final decision would be made within two weeks after going through the complaints and suggestions.
With this, Kerala will have a total of six municipal corporations, 87 municipalities and 1,011 grama panchayats. The current proposals are based on the recommendations made by the government committee entrusted with the task. In addition, there were memorandums directly received by the government.
The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the draft proposal. A period of 15 days has been given for raising complaints and suggestions. Based on this, the final decision will be taken,” Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said at the post-Cabinet press briefing. The aim is to formulate the new local bodies ahead of the polls.
The Chief Minister said that formulating new panchayats would add financial burden upon the government while formulating municipalities will not do so. Answering questions on whether the new panchayats are being formed on a political consensus, Chandy said that new suggestions and complaints in this regard would be taken into consideration.
Formulating new local bodies would lead to delimitation of certain panchayats. The government has already appointed a delimitation commission to fix the borders of panchayat wards.
The delimitation commission to be chaired by State Election Commissioner K Sasidharan Nair, will include principal secretary James Varghese, Urban secretary Mohammed Haneesh, general administration secretary K R Jyothilal and Health secretary K Elangovan as members.
In 2013, 23 grama panchayats were either converted as municipalities or were attached to corporations, and one grama panchayat was formed. With Kannur being upgraded to a Corporation, the newlyformed Kannur Municipal Corporation will consist of the Kannur municipality along with Pallikunnu, Puzhathi, Edakadu, Elayavoor and Chelora grama panchayats.