By IANS
New Delhi : State legislative councils would henceforth be constituted only by representatives of panchayats and municipalities once the government accepts the recommendations of the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC).
ARC chairman Veerappa Moily unveiled Tuesday some of the recommendations the ARC has made in its report on local governance, titled: “Local Governance: A Journey into the Future.”
Releasing the report to the media, Moily said, “I visualize the state legislative councils to be patterned after the Rajya Sabha and just as the Rajya Sabha is the council of states, the legislative council should also be a body representing the local bodies,” said Moily.
The Commission has also suggested barring MPs and MLAs from the membership of local bodies. He said, “MPs and MLAs tend to dominate when they enter these meetings. We don’t want that to happen. We want that the local bodies’ members fell fully empowered.”
He also said in reply to a question, “Yes I have recommended for abolition of teachers’ and graduates’ constituencies. At the moment there are many other professions like doctors, lawyers and architects who can claim representation on the same criterion,” said the ARC chairman.
The Commission has also recommended direct election of the mayor and empowering the mayor to choose his cabinet just as a chief minister is empowered.
The ARC has also recommended abolition of octroi and suggested alternate and more dependable resources generation to strengthen the finances of the municipal bodies.
It has suggested that the central authority should have a subsidiary role performing those tasks only if they cannot be performed at a more local level.
Explaining the recommendations he said, the Indian system had visualized a three-tier system of democratic government which he said had not been able to fully develop. “There is no really third tier of governance and the third tier largely functions as a subsidiary of the state government.”