Mounesh Vishwakarma
Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (EP)
Bantwal, Aug 10: The Bantwal municipal council, that was once mandal panchayat, town panchayat and currently town municipal council has all the indications of getting upgraded to city municipality. The preliminary procedures have already been undertaken after district-in-charge minister B Ramanath Rai took special interest in the matter, this being his constituency.
Soon after Vinay Kumar Sorake was appointed as minister of urban development, he had arrived at Bantwal municipal council and Vasanthi, president of municipal council had set forth a proposal in front of the minister to upgrade the municipal council as city municipality. The minister had positively responded to the proposal.
The developments kindled hope among locals that the municipal council may be upgraded to city municipality. However, it was later understood that the cabinet had taken a decision to upgrade Ullal to the status of city municipality, but not Bantwal.
In the dramatic developments that followed, the government had upgraded Puttur town municipal council as the city municipality. Minister B Ramanath Rai who saw the proposal of upgrading Bantwal municipal council given up, pursuaded minister Vinay Kumar Sorake to do the same for Bantwal. He held a meeting of the Congress members in the town municipal council and party leaders and asked president Vasanthi to pass the resolution and forward it to the government.
Special meeting
In this connection, a special meeting of the municipal council is proposed to be held on Tuesday, August 12. As small population of the town has been the reason for the delay, a decision to include the areas of neighboring villages is likely to be taken during the meeting. Deputy commissioner A B Ibrahim had a discussion with officials in the municipal council last Sunday. It is necessary to have a population of more than 56,000 in order to declare a city municipality and in this connection, a portion of Amtadi and Narikombu villages will be included, and if the population is still less, Brahmarakootlu, Daribagilu, Nandavara and Parla areas too are likely to be included after discussions.
In this regard the decision that will be undertaken by the municipal council in the meeting on Tuesday will be important.
Town municipal council in 1974
The mandal panchayat was converted to municipal council in 1974. Bantwal got demoted as town panchayat during the ten years that followed. It became town municipal council again during the BJP-JD(S) led Coalition government. As per the census in 2001 the council area had a population of 41,000. It has a population of 46,000 at present. It will be inevitable to include neighboring villages to increase the population. A portion of Amtadi and Narikombu villages was already included during the formation of municipal council.