Lieutenant Governor, Girish Chandra Murmu today held an interaction session with the Councillors of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) at SKICC.
Along with the Councillors, SMC Mayor,Junaid Azim Mattu; Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, Baseer Ahmed Khan; IGPKashmir Vijay Kumar; Deputy Mayor Srinagar, Parvaiz Ahmed Qadri; SMCCommissioner Gazanfar Ali; VC LAWDA, Tufail Matto and other senior officersalso attended the session.
While addressing the Councillors, the LtGovernor said that the government believes in empowerment of electedrepresentatives who work at the grassroots level to provide succour to thepeople. “After the abrogation of Article 370, we empowered Panchayatrepresentatives and now it is your turn to get empowered,” he said, adding thata notification would be issued soon for defining the powers, status andprotocol of the Councillors.
On being apprised about the issue of hikein Ward Development Fund, the Lt Governor assured that positive steps would betaken in this regard soon and the Councillors would be in a better position totake care of their areas after that.
The Lt Governor further said that everyonehas to play a constructive role whether he is a Councillor or an official andit is imperative to maintain synergy between officials and Councillors forenhancing the performance of the SMC.
Emphasizing on the revamping of SMC, the LtGovernor said that there is a need to update rules, functioning, jurisdictionand mandate of the corporation. He stressed on the need to make roads,electricity, drinking water and drainage sector as the domain of the concernedCouncillors. “Srinagar city has to bedeveloped in a planned manner. Master plan has to be implemented for fulfillingfuturistic needs of the city. The practice of doing works in bits and pieceshas to be done away with,” he said.
The Lt Governor observed that the entiredevelopmental activity has to be done in a planned way. Spatial Planning has totake the centre stage and places need to be identified where governmentdepartments, shopping malls, recreation facilities, parking and otherstructures would come up and in every building aesthetics and a touch of localarchitecture should be maintained, he added. He also asked the SMC officials tocreate capacity building for efficient administrative structure, enforcement,sanitation with futuristic perspective planning, besides ensuring compliance ofbuilding permissions strictly as per rules and creation of assets for providingmore facilities to the people of Srinagar.
Earlier, SMC Mayor, Junaid Azim Mattu andCommissioner SMC, Gazanfar Ali, in a power point presentation gave an overallview of the functioning of the corporation and challenges faced by it. A briefaccount of implementation of centrally sponsored schemes, works under AMRUT,SBM, JTFRP and 14th Finance Commission were given out, besides information wasalso given on the various developmental works undertaken in the Srinagar city.
The Councillors also raised several issuespertaining to their wards and sought intervention of Lt Governor in speeding upthe development in their respective wards, on which, the Lt Governor assuredthem to address the same for their early redressal.