HYDERABAD: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has decided to constitute ‘area sabhas’ after a considerable delay.
Area sabhas, consisting of all the electors in that area, have to be constituted in all the wards within three months from the date of constituting a ward committee that is July 3.
The GHMC will issue a notification in this connection on May 2. Applications will be received at circle offices from May 4 to 22. Scrutiny of applications by deputy commissioners will be taken up from May 23 to 30. The list of eligible persons will be put up on June 1. A special meeting will be held for nomination of area sabha representatives (ASR) by a voice vote on or before June 22.
All the 150 GHMC wards have been divided into 1,347 areas based on the population of the ward at the rate 5,000 population for each area. Natural boundaries and geographical contiguity of the area will be observed as far as possible in the division of a ward into areas. The existing polling booths in the ward have been tagged to the areas.
The eligibility for nomination as an area sabha representative is that the person should be aged not less than 21 years. He/she should be representing the civil society as president or secretary of a registered residents welfare association (RWA) in the area, a member of registered tax-payers association or rate payers association in the area concerned, a resident/secretary of federation of a slum in the area.
If there is no slum-level federation in an area, a representative of senior-most self-help group in that area and a member of a registered association, institution, institute, body or organisation or an NGO or Mahila Mandali or trade union, chamber of commerce, medical council in the area can apply.
Persons representing the associations, organisations, institutions etc. mentioned in this rule except slum-level federation are eligible for nomination as area sabha representatives, provided the said bodies were registered one year prior to the date of nomination.
The applicants for area sabha representative position should be registered as voters in the electoral roll of the ward and the area concerned. The term of the ASR will be co-terminus with that of the corporation.
Applications to be received
All deputy commissioners have been asked to receive applications from the members of the civil society, scrutinise and communicate the list of eligible applicants to the head office for placing a consolidated list of eligible applicants before the corporation for nomination as ASR. After the nomination, proceedings will be issued indicating the names of persons nominated by the corporation as ASRs.