The Trinamul board at the Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) — the largest civic body in north Bengal with 47 wards — will conduct a survey to find out which wards need to be bifurcated for improvement of civic services and better governance.
The decision has been made as residents of different wards have demanded that the state carry out the delimitation process and increase the number of wards in the city.
Also, there is a demand to include some rural areas, which are contiguous with the civic area and have undergone rapid urbanisation, in the SMC. “The proposal for delimitation of wards in the SMC area is justified, because many wards are larger in size. But this process has to be carried out in a specific procedure. We are in touch with the state government on the issue. Also, the demand for inclusion of some adjoining rural areas is under consideration,” said Gautam Deb, the mayor of Siliguri.
Recently, the demand was also voiced by some residents who had called up Deb during the “Talk to Mayor” session. The mayor conducts such an interaction with residents of the city once in every week.
Sources in the civic body said after conducting a comprehensive survey, a proposal for delimitation of the wards will be sent to the state.
“A resident of ward 46, which is the largest ward of the city in terms of population (the total number of voters is 22,838 in the ward), had called up the mayor and had questioned him. The mayor had replied that they are working on the demand for bifurcation of the ward,” said a source.
Back in 1994, the then Siliguri municipality was upgraded into a municipal corporation. It comprises 33 wards which are under Darjeeling district and 14 wards which are under Jalpaiguri district.
Though the areas are under SMC, these are still under the administrative jurisdiction of Jalpaiguri.
“When the municipality was upgraded, the delimitation was done in a hurried manner and parity was not maintained in identifying the new wards and in marking their areas. Some wards have larger areas and more population as compared to others. We will send a proposal for restructuring the wards where a balance would be maintained with regard to the area and population of each ward,” the mayor said.
In SMC area, there are many wards which have less than 5,000 voters while in most of the wards which are under Jalpaiguri district, the population is 10,000 or more.
“The delimitation is necessary to ensure that every resident is provided with proper civic services. Also, it would help in improving governance, and can help in better planning for development of the city,” said an official of SMC.
