Bihar govt set to appoint administrators for urban local bodies till municipal election

PATNA: As an alternative arrangement in the backdrop of urban polls being delayed, the state government is all set to hand over the functioning of municipal bodies in the state to administrators as the five-year term of the majority of local bodies is going to expire in the next few weeks, said officials in the urban development department ( UDD).

According to officials aware of the development, there is also a proposal under consideration to form an administrative board/ committee to supervise the functioning of the urban local bodies to be headed by administrators till the urban polls are conducted. The proposed committee will have members from the urban local bodies, including the mayor and deputy mayor as chairpersons of corporations and municipal councils. Satish Kumar Singh, special secretary, UDD said the state government will appoint administrators for urban local bodies whose terms will expire in the coming weeks, as per provisions in the law. “We are going to act as per law. The appointments to give charge of the urban bodies to administrators would be done through notifications,” he said.

He, however, did not comment on the possibility of the formation of administrative committees/ boards for running the urban local bodies till the election is held.

Officials aware of the development said that the administrators for municipal corporations would be district magistrates (DMs) while for municipal councils, it would be deputy development commissioners( DDCs). For Nagar Panchayats, the bottom tier of municipal bodies would be under executive officers as administrators, officials said.

“The DMs could delegate the role of administrators to ADMs or municipal commissioners in municipal corporations,” said another officer, in know of the matter.

Officials said out of 101 municipal bodies which had a five-year term after urban bodies elections were held in 2017, the term of 90 municipal bodies has already ended on June 9 while the term of 11 other urban bodies, including Patna Municipal Corporation ( PMC) and Munger municipal corporation, will end on June 19, June 21 and June 27.

In the last few years, the state government has created new urban bodies and upgraded urban bodies from Nagar Panchayats to Councils taking the total number of municipal bodies in the state to 258. The upcoming municipal polls would be held for 245 urban local bodies as the term of the other 13 municipal bodies has not yet ended so far.

DECISION TAKEN AS THE FIVE-YEAR TERM OF MAJORITY OF LOCAL BODIES IS GOING TO EXPIRE IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS