GHMC to introduce concept of ward offices

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HYDERABAD, Telangana: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is planning to implement a new mode of governance and administration by introducing ward offices.

Ward Officers, at the lowest level of administration in the civic body, will be aided by the key unit functionaries from all the wings of GHMC, and they will be responsible for providing core municipal services to the citizens at the ward level. Officials said, “Such an arrangement would result in precision and objectivity with role clarity and functional responsibility for the officials on one hand and will be a single-point contact for citizens to access all municipal services. It will also help GHMC in swifter redressal of their grievances.”

The Government of Telangana has constituted five teams, and they will be visiting metropolitan cities in the country to observe best practices related to field-level mechanisms dealing with municipal services. These teams will consist of Zonal Commissioners of GHMC. Zonal Commissioners will later submit a field visit observation report to D S Lokesh Kumar, Commissioners of GHMC, with a copy marked to the state government.

The idea of these committees was put forward by K T Rama Rao, Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD), during a recent review meeting to monitor the progress of projects and developmental works in GHMC. Minister recommended that they should bring governance to ground level by appointing these ward officers.

These zonal commissioners (ZC) include N Ravi Kiran, ZC Khairatabad; V Mamatha, ZC Kukatpally; B Srinivas Reddy, ZC Secunderabad; Shankaraiah, ZC Serilingampally; and S Pankaja, ZC L B Nagar will be visiting New Delhi Municipal Corporation, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata, respectively.

The GHMC officials informed Indian Express that these ward-level officers could be instrumental in resolving local-level issues such as garbage clearance, desiltation of nalas, sanitation, billing issues related to property tax, stray dog menace, potholes and streetlights.

All Panchayat secretaries and ward officers will monitor and implement different development works in close association with the local corporators, and each ward will monitor a population ranging between 40,000 to 50,000.