More than a fortnight after the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor were elected through indirect elections, the Vellore Corporation is gearing up for another round of indirect polls by councillors to elect the Chairman and members of various standing committees to the local bodies ahead of its first general council meeting.
Corporation officials said indirect elections to for posts of chairman and members of standing committees will be held on March 30 and 31 in the council hall of the local body office on Infantry Road near Vellore Fort.
Currently, the civic body has a total of 60 wards in its four zones, covering around 8 lakh residents. For residents, the elections will help the civic body to prepare its budget and also to hold general council meetings in April.
“Once the indirect elections for committees are completed, a general council meeting will be held within a month,” said Vellore Corporation Commissioner P. Ashok Kumar.
At present, the Corporation has standing committees for accounts, public health, education, taxation and finance, town planning and works. The composition of each committee varies between six and eight members.
The Vellore municipality was upgraded to a Corporation in 2008 with P. Karthikeyan, the present Vellore MLA, becoming the Mayor that year. After delimitation exercises, the Corporation, with 60 wards, went to polls for the first time in 2011. The then AIADMK candidate P. Karthiyayini, now a BJP office-bearer, became the Mayor in the direct elections. In the recently held elections for urban local bodies, the DMK won in 44 of the wards.
Key projects are awaiting further push from the general council meeting. These include road work, waste management, Smart City projects, traffic regulation, regular water supply, especially during summer, recreational spots, like parks and playgrounds, and underground drainage.
Among these, the ₹1,000 crore Smart City Project was taken up as a model project by the civic body in 2019. As a pilot project, it has been implemented only in Sathuvachari on Chennai-Bengaluru Highway. Widened stormwater drains, bitumen-topped roads with tiled pathways for walkers, LED street lights and garbage bins are some of its features.
