'Changes in urban development plan inevitable'

Inaugurating a workshop on government’s ‘Urban Development Policy-2009’ at SDM Business College on Friday, he said that the government has brought in the new system where the draft copy of the policy to be formulated is kept before the public platform for the people to hold discussion.

“The Urban Development Policy has matter pertaining to infrastructure, administration and finance and priority has been given to accumulation and equal distribution of resources,” he said and added that workshops of this kind have been held at Hubli-Dharwad, Mysore and Bangalore to gather public opinion on the draft.

Urban Development Secretary Shambhu Dayal Meena said that the discussions should not be held to see how the policy can be suited to Mangalore but it must be held with the aim of making people know their duties along with their rights.

Earlier delivering the keynote address, Dakshina Kannada District Deputy Commissioner V Ponnuraj said that the policy has not given enough importance to Dakshina Kannada when compared to Hubli-Dharwad, Mysore and Bangalore. He said that if Dakshina Kannada is compared with Hubli-Dharwad in terms of development than the pace of the development, it is much more and faster than Hubli Dharwad and hence more emphasis and priority must be given to DK district.

He said that the policy also speaks of scrapping off Urban Development Authority and handing over the responsibility to District Planning Committee.

“The Committee takes care of rural development per se and handing over the responsibility of urban development to the Committee will not be advisable because the problems of rural areas are diametric to that of urban areas,” he said and added that handing over urban development committee will only add to burden and will not yield any result.

He said that the Committee at present is headed by ZP Chief, who will too not have much of experience handling urban problems. Instead, DC suggested that the Committee must be headed by either the District Incharge Minister or the Mayor of the respective Municipal bodies.

Delivering the presidential address, Mayor M Shanker Bhat said that the very essence of 73rd ammendment of decentralisation of power has not been implemented sincerely. “A Mayor headed councils have come to existence in Muncipal bodies but do they have the power to make decision. The Muncipal bodies have to look at the Government for every small decision. Where is the decentralisation of power happening,” he questioned.
MLA U T Khader, MCC Commissioner Dr K N Vijayaprakash, IIM Professor Dr Ashwin Mahesh, Deputy Mayor Rajani Dugganna, SDMC Business College Principal Dr Devaraj and others were present.