Khattar sets target of self-reliance for all 10 municipal corporations in Haryana

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has set the target of complete financial self-reliance for all the 10 municipal corporations in the state.

This was informed in a meeting with mayors and commissioners of the municipal corporations held here on Saturday, an official statement said.

In the meeting, Khattar stressed upon the significance of the municipal corporations as the units of local self-government and shared his vision of transforming the corporations into financially viable bodies.

During the meeting, municipal commissioners and mayors presented their respective plans to the chief minister for increasing their income and curtailing the expenditure.

The department of Urban Local Bodies made a presentation on the way forward towards achieving efficiency through increased use of IT and decentralisation of various financial and administrative powers.

Khattar directed all the mayors and commissioners to replace all streetlights with LEDs in a time-bound manner by March 31.

Additional Principal Secretary to chief minister and Principal Secretary, Urban Local Bodies Department, V Umashankar, Director General, Urban Local Bodies Department, Amit Agarwal were also present in the meeting.

On the occasion, Khattar also launched two online services, namely, water and sewer connection and billing system and change of land use (CLU) system, which would streamline the process of approval of CLUs and sanction of water and sewerage connections as well as bill-generation and receipt-collection.

During the meeting, the chief minister discussed at length various strategies to recover arrears, especially those of property tax and water and sewerage bills. He directed the department to come up with one-time settlement schemes to encourage the citizens to deposit their arrears, as per the statement.

He also insisted on timely and hassle-free delivery of services to the citizens.

The chief minister said the state government has already announced that 2020 would be observed as 'Susashan Sankalp Varsh' and fair and prompt delivery of services to the public is only possible through e-governance.

He said making the water and sewage billing system and change of land system online will not only bring transparency but also help in reducing corruption.