Waterlogging at Nonapara

Political parties vying for control of the 50 wards of Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) have failed the electorate even before the elections due on November 22. Howrah residents believe that unless the municipal wards are delimited following the population boom, the civic body will fail to deliver any civic amenities to the people.

The Howrah Municipality was upgraded to Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) in 1980, but in the last 30 years, population has increased ten times. Yet neither the ruling Left Front (LF) nor the opposition parties have taken any initiative to delimit the wards to ensure better civic services to the people.

The Howrah Municipal Corporation Act was passed by the West Bengal Assembly in 1980, in which the area of HMC was shown in Schedule-I and areas of the wards were shown in Schedule-II. But the act is silent on the issue of population. “The first election under Howrah Municipal Corporation Act was held in 1984 when population was not an issue. Now that the population has increased ten times in the last two-and-half decades, the number of wards have to be increased by dividing the wards with a greater population density to ensure better civic services,” said Samir Roy Choudhury, one of the oldest residents of Shibpur. He said that had the ruling Left Front and Opposition Congress and Trinamul been sincere about providing better civic services to the residents of Howrah town, they would have sent a unanimous recommendation to the state government seeking delimitation of the wards.

Section 119 of the Howrah Municipal Corporation Act, 1980 says, “The state government may, on the recommendation of the corporation, by notification, add to, amend or alter any schedule of the act except Schedule I.” Thus, HMC cannot recommend any change in the area under its control but it can recommend changes in the areas of the wards within the corporation limits.

While the population in ward numbers 4, 5, 14, 32 is between 5,000 to 8,000, it is nine to ten times more in wards 15, 41, 45, 46, 47 and 50. The head count in these wards hover between 45,000 and 50,000. The state government could have considered the delimitation of the wards had the HMC raised the proposal in the meeting of the members of the mayor-in-council and passed it in the Open General (OG) meeting before sending it to the state government.

“Delimitation is necessary for better civic services. But I cannot recall any proposal recommending delimitation being taken up by the HMC during my 10 years as member of mayor-in-council in charge of buildings,” said Gautam Roy, former councillor of ward 15 of HMC. With a steep rise in the population in Howrah town, providing conservancy services like clearing garbage, cleaning choked drains, renovating roads and providing other civic services have become an uphill task. This is apparent as heaps of garbage is left uncleared for days, polluted water from choked drains flood the roads, majority of the roads under the HMC are broken and waterlogging is a perennial affair in most wards. While population has increased manifold, the number of conservancy staff has remained the same.

If the number of wards is increased through delimitation, the state government will have to release more funds for development. But the ruling Left Front had not taken any initiative to send any proposal recommending delimitation,” said Umesh Rai, president, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, Howrah district and BJP candidate from ward 15. He added, “The number of voters in ward 15 is 33,000 and population is nearly 1.5 lakh, while the number of voters in the neighbouring ward 14 is only 4,700 and population is less than 15,000. But fund allocated for development of the wards is the same.”

Ward 15 is one of the largest populated wards in HMC that includes thickly populated areas like Pilkhana and Madrasi Basti. HMC mayor Mamata Jaiswal also admitted that there is a difference in population density in different wards and the money allotted for the thickly populated wards was not adequate for proper development. But she said she was unable to do anything in this regard. “The small wards get Rs 5 lakh and big wards get 10 lakh at a time for any development work. But the wards where population is 40,000 to 50,000, Rs 10 lakh is too small to provide any civic service.” Passing the buck to the state government, she added: “But this anomaly must be removed by the state government.”

Most of the residents of Howrah think the delimitation is also necessary for the councillors to look after their wards properly.

Besides ensuring proper civic services to the

residents of the wards, every councillor has to meet the residents of their wards, issue resident

certificates, character certificates, caste certificates, income certificates, BPL certificates and other things. “The smaller the area of the wards and the lesser the population, the easier it will be for councillors to reach out to the people,” said Om Prakash Singh, a resident of Kings Road.