New Delhi: Women in city may get equal
representation in MCD if Delhi Government's proposal to split
the civic agency into five smaller bodies and increasing the
number of wards to 408 from current 272 goes through.
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who has been
under attack from a section of her own party over the proposal
to split the civic body, said her government wants to reserve
50 of the total seats for women if the wards are increased to
over 400.
"We want to have 50 per cent reservation for women in
the new bodies. That is why we want to increase the number of
wards," Dikshit told agency.
Currently the MCD has 92 per cent women councillors,
which is 33 per cent of the total strength.
Justifying the move to split the MCD and increasing
the number of wards, she said reform in the civic body has
become inevitable considering the size of the population in
the city.
"We want to increase the number of wards as currently
we have one ward for a population of 60,000. We want to bring
down the figure to around 40,000 per ward so that people can
be offered better civic facilities," she said.
The city government's proposal to split the MCD has
evoked strong criticism within the ruling party with some MLAs
intensifying their attack on Dikshit for not holding
proper consultation within the party on the issue.
At a DPCC meeting, several Congress leaders, openly
slammed her for the "style of functioning" of the government
and said voice of the partymen must be respected on important
issues.
In a politically-sensitive move, the Delhi cabinet
last week had decided "in principle" to split the MCD into
five smaller bodies ahead of the 2012 municipal polls.
Although a section in the party are totally opposed
to splitting the civic body, another section is of the opinion
that the civic body should be split but number of wards should
not be increased.
Kalkaji MLA Subhash Chopra last week had led a
delegation of five legislators to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi
to protest against government's decision to split the MCD.
The MLAs, strongly opposing the move, also complained
against Dikshit's "style of functioning" and said no
discussion had taken place in the party before taking such
an important decision by the Cabinet.
The Cabinet had accepted the recommendations of a
high-level committee, headed by Health Minister AK Walia,
which suggested splitting the civic body into five smaller
municipalities. The committee had also suggested increasing
the total number of wards from current 272 to around 408.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, April 20, 2011, 19:26