With an eye on the forthcoming municipal corporation elections, the Gujarat government on Saturday appointed Administrators to the six Municipal Corporations—Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar, and Bhavnagar. These administrators will now take over the functioning of the Municipal Corporations as the term of their elected bodies ends on March 9 (Monday).
The Urban Development and Urban Housing Department of the state govt followed suit and issued similar orders for the Municipal Corporations that will see their five-year term coming to an end next week.
According to the govt orders, the Education Department’s Principal Secretary, Mukesh Kumar (IAS:1996:GJ), has been appointed as Administrator of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.
The Managing Director of the Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd. (GUVNL), Shalini Agarwal (IAS:2005:GJ), has been deputed as the Administrator of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation.
Milind Torwane (IAS:2000:GJ), currently serving as Education Secretary, has been named Surat civic body’s Administrator, and Remya Mohan (IAS:2007:GJ) will be in charge of the Rajkot civic body.
Similarly, Aarti Kanwar (IAS:2001:GJ) will administer the Jamnagar civic body, and the Social Justice and Empowerment Secretary, Harshad Patel (IAS:2005:GJ), has been posted as Administrator of the Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation.
While Remya Mohan was posted earlier in Rajkot as its District Collector from 2019 to 2021, Milind Torwane served as Surat Municipal Commissioner between 2014 and 2016.
Similarly, Shalini Agarwal earlier served as Vadodara Municipal Commissioner from 2021 to 2022. She was recently transferred from Surat, where she was the Municipal Commissioner, to the post of MD GUVNL in Vadodara.
According to reliable sources, the notification for the civic polls is likely to be made after the conclusion of the ongoing Assembly session on March 22. The fact of the matter is that these elections are delayed and were originally meant to be held in December, but they were last delayed in 2020-2021 due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. And hence the corresponding delay.
As per the GPMC Act, due to the Disaster Management Act also being in place at that time, the Municipal Commissioners of respective civic bodies were appointed as CEOs instead of appointing fresh administrators. However, since the last election was held in February 2021, the cycle of the civic body polls has now changed.
These elections are now likely to be held at the end of April or in the first week of May.
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