BHUBANESWAR: As the panchayat elections are in the final stages, the State government on Wednesday cleared the path for urban elections giving its consent to the State Election Commission (SEC) for starting the exercise.
In two separate notifications, the Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) department said that it is expedient to hold elections to reconstitute 107 municipalities, notified area councils (NACs) and three municipal corporations as the terms of the elected representatives have been completed. The municipal corporations are Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) and Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC).
The term of office of the elected chairperson, councillors of a municipality apart from mayor and corporators of a municipal corporation is five years from the date of their first meeting convened under Odisha Municipal Act, 1950 and Odisha Municipal Corporation Act, 2003 respectively.
The term of five years from the date of appointment for the first meeting has been completed in respect of 103 municipalities and NACs. The Chandabali, Dhamnagar, Bijepur and Remuna NACs are newly constituted. “The State government hereby calls upon all wards in the city of BMC, CMC and BeMC to elect mayors and corporators in accordance with the provisions of the Odisha Municipal Corporation Act and Rules and orders made thereunder,” the H&UD department notification said.
The State government also called upon all the wards in municipal areas, except Bhadrak municipality to elect the chairpersons and councillors. Meanwhile, the administration has completed delimitation of wards and reservation of seats and offices of chairpersons in case of municipalities/NACs and mayors of municipal corporations.
Elections to urban local bodies are overdue since December 2018 and in some cases from July 2019. The SEC is likely to announce the dates for the ULB polls anytime after the completion of the ongoing three-tier panchayat elections in the State.