HYDERABAD: Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is all set to introduce a new concept in governance and administration, that of ward offices.
Ward Officers will be appointed for providing core municipal services to the citizens at the ward level, which will be the lowest level of administration in the civic body and will be aided by key unit functionaries from all the wings of the GHMC. “Such an arrangement would result in precision and objectivity with role clarity and functional responsibility for the officials on one hand and will be a single-point contact for citizens to access all municipal services. It will also help GHMC in swifter redressal of their grievances,” said GHMC officials.
To study the best practices in field-level mechanisms dealing with municipal services, State government has constituted five teams to visit metropolitan cities in the country from April 25 to 26. Each team, comprising officials will be led by GHMC Zonal Commissioners (ZCs). The idea was suggested by Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD), K T Rama Rao, during a recent review meeting on the progress of key projects and developmental works in GHMC. He had suggested to bring administration and governance to ground level by appointing ward officers.
The zonal commissioners, after visiting the cities will submit a field visit observation report to the GHMC Commissioner D S Lokesh Kumar with a copy marked to the State government. The zonal commissioners visiting five metropolitan cities will be as follows: ZC Khairatabad, N Ravi Kiran will visit New Delhi Municipal Corporation; ZC Kukatpally, V Mamatha will visit Mumbai; ZC Secunderabad, B Srinivas Reddy will go to Chennai; ZC Serilingampally, Shankaraiah will be visiting Bangalore and ZC L B Nagar, S Pankaja will visit Kolkata.
GHMC officials told Express that ward-level officers would help in resolution of ward-level issues like clearing garbage, sanitation, desilting nalas, billing issues of property tax, dog menace, potholes and street lighting issues.
A la panchayat secretaries in rural bodies, and ward officers will be monitoring and implementing different development works in coordination with local corporators. Each ward will be overseeing a population of about 40 to 50 thousand.