THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The UDF Government is planning to revive the development authorities scrapped by the LDF Government.
Industries and Urban Affairs Minister P K Kunhalikutty told the Assembly on Wednesday that the UDF indeed had plans to revive the development authorities dissolved by the LDF Government.
The decision was based on the UDF policy, he said in reply to questions by MLAs E P Jayarajan, C K Sadasivan, Saju Paul and S Rajendran.
He denied that the revival would hamper the decentralisation process in the state.
The Urban Affairs Minister's statement in the Assembly has come at a time when the permanent staff of the erstwhile development authorities were being redeployed to various local selfgovernment institutions.
Now they will find themselves redeployed once again.
But Kunhalikutty said that reappointing them would hamper the functioning of LSG institutions. The previous LDF Government had, in general, taken a stand against development authorities.
In fact, all existing authorities except the Greater Cochin Development Authority and the Thiruvananthapuram Development Authority were dissolved and merged with the local bodies concerned. This included authorities at Idukki, Thrissur, Palakkad and Kozhikode.
The LDF stand was that the development authorities were hindering smooth implementation of decentralisation.
The Kerala Municipal and Corporation Staff Union, a Left trade union, has opposed the UDF move to bring back the authorities. ''It is against the very essence of decentralisation,'' KMCSU general secretary K Jayadevan said.