On September 29, 1688, Madras became the first city Corporation to come into existence in India. That day, Nathaniel Higginson took the oath as the first Mayor of Madras, along with those nominated for the posts of aldermen and burgesses, who were to help in managing the Corporation.
After the ceremony, the Colonial records show, at 3 p.m., all those who took the oath marched in their ceremonial robes and with the maces before the Mayor to the Town Hall.
Three-hundred-and-thirty-four years since the inauguration, Madras has become Chennai and the posts of aldermen and burgesses have transformed into those of councillors. Despite getting suspended on many occasions and changes in the powers and responsibilities over the years, the post of Mayor has, however, survived along with the grandeur and solemnity associated with it, including the mayoral robes and the gold chain (which weighs about a kilogram) and the mace.
The municipal corporations (and other local bodies) of Tamil Nadu functioned without elected representatives since 2016 due to the non-conduct of elections. Before that, Chennai did not have a Mayor from 1973 to 1996, after the post was suspended because of a scam, known as the ‘Muster Roll Scandal’.
With the conclusion of the urban local bodies elections and the Mayors for 21 corporations taking charge this week, their role and that of the council has come to the spotlight. Of the 21 corporations, nine that were formed after 2016 are getting Mayors for the first time. The fact that these 21 cities in Tamil Nadu, the most urbanised among the larger States, account for roughly 25% of the State’s population despite occupying less than 2% of its area underlines the significance of the role of the Mayors and the council.
With the civic bodies run without elected representatives for six years and the public getting used to directly dealing with officials, there is a tendency among a smaller section of the public to perceive the role of the council and the Mayor as dispensable.
A few office-bearers of residents’ welfare associations The Hindu spoke to in middle and high-income neighbourhoods of Chennai said they often associated councillors with corruption. “The poor turnout of just above 30% in the recent elections in some of the wards is reflective of this perception,” one of them said.
However, activists working on issues of urban governance felt the civic officials could not replace the elected representatives. Jayaram Venkatesan, convener of Arappor Iyakkam, an organisation that takes up various issues with the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), said it was fundamentally conflicting to allow officials to decide on the work to be done, approve tenders, execute the work and pass their own budget.
Acknowledging that there might be shortcomings in the functioning of councillors and Mayors, he said they, however, played a crucial role in ensuring that the work done by the corporations met the needs of the people.
C. Balasubramanian, adviser, Tiruchi District Exnora, said the absence of an elected council and a Mayor had indeed been an impediment to residents effectively conveying and getting their requirements fulfilled. “Though the Mayors may not enjoy full powers to act independently, being an elected representative, he or she will be more responsive to our complaints than the officials,” he said.
S. Sakthivel, organiser of the Federation of Tiruchi City Residents Welfare Associations, said that while the officials could dodge the people citing one reason or the other, the Mayor would not do so. “We are looking for better development of the city,” he said.
A retired official of the GCC said the role of councillors could not be undermined as they acted as an intermediary between people and the executive. He pointed out that the local bodies in Tamil Nadu were also not receiving the funds they were entitled to from the Union government because of the absence of elected representatives.
Many also pointed to the initiative taken by Mayors in the past to implement measures that proved to be models worth emulating elsewhere like ‘Singara Chennai’, which was launched by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin when he was the Mayor in 1996.
Expectations high
The election of Mayors and Councillors has, consequently, raised the expectations of residents that the needs of the cities, especially municipalities that were recently upgraded as corporations, would be addressed.
Karur, one of the last six municipalities to be upgraded as corporations last year, is a case in point. The city, renowned for its textile business, is facing a plethora of issues, including insufficient supply of drinking water, lack of underground drainage in most areas, and the long-pending demand for shifting out the bus stand. “Though Karur is located close to the Cauvery, we face an acute water scarcity. Solving the drinking water crisis should be the top priority for the new Mayor,” said A.R. Malayappasamy, a resident of Gandhigramam.
In almost all the corporations, lack of basic amenities remains the key concern of residents and activists, indicating that there is a long way to go to make the cities future-ready, smart and sustainable.
N. Shanmugasundaram, a consumer activist from Tiruppur, said that despite being made a corporation in 2008, the city suffered from irregular drinking water supply, damaged roads and accumulation of garbage. N. Padmanabhan, a resident of Salem, said residents expected the damaged roads to be repaired at least before the elections. “However even major roads within the city are less motorable today,” he said.
S. Rethinavelu, a resident of Madurai and president of Agrofood Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the priority for the newly elected Mayor and the council should be to make the city more liveable. S. Selvagomathy, an activist, said she expected more focus on issues of women’s safety, given that the city has got a woman Mayor now. “Many streets in Madurai are poorly lit. There are concerns over the safety of women,” she said.
In Erode, the residents felt that though the city was executing projects worth more than ₹900 crore under the National Smart Cities Mission, some of the fundamental issues faced by the city, including traffic congestion and poor drainage, had not been addressed.
Hosur, which became a corporation in 2019, has got a Mayor for the first time. K. Velmuguran, president, Hosur Small and Tiny Industries Association, said that opening more health centres, widening the roads, and solid waste management should be the priority. Being an industrial city, he said the middle-class and lower-middle-class workforce that catered to the micro, small and medium industries struggled with high rentals and wanted the corporation to work with the State government to build low-cost houses.
There is also a public demand for the elected representatives to come up with holistic plans for the development of the cities instead of adopting a piecemeal approach. Some activists said that such a vision was largely absent from the election campaign as the post of Mayor was filled indirectly this time and candidates running for councillor spoke only about the issues of their wards.
K. Kathirmathiyon, a consumer activist from Coimbatore, said key issues such as the decongestion of the core business district by shifting the markets, traffic regulation and building plan approval were hardly discussed.
While the implementation of projects to address various issues remained the key demand, some also highlighted the need to address the financial constraints faced by many corporations. V.S. Jayaraman, an office-bearer of the T. Nagar Residents’ Welfare Association in Chennai, said the new Mayor had to handle the unenviable task of putting the civic body’s finances in shape. With property tax being the mainstay of the GCC’s revenue, he said an attempt to increase the tax during the previous AIADMK government was given up following a public outcry.
He said the watchword for the new Mayor should be “arrears first, revision next” as property tax arrears running to crores of rupees had not been collected. Merely revising the rate, without efforts to collect the arrears, would not solve the problem, he said.
‘Easily approachable’
If the Mayors and the councillors were to truly reflect the will of people, the functioning of the council should be made more representative and accountable, activists and residents said. They expect the elected candidates to meet the residents welfare associations once in at least three months to understand their grievances. The councillors should be easily approachable at all times, they said.
Writer Aadhavan Dheetchanya, a resident of Hosur, said a mechanism should be in place for conducting a periodic social audit of the functioning of the council as it was being done in the village panchayats for the projects implemented under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
Echoing similar thoughts, Mr. Jayaram Venkatesan said the provisions for similar measures were present in the law but had not been implemented. He said area sabhas within each ward were to be formed in all urban local bodies under the Tamil Nadu Municipal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2010.
There is also a demand for live streaming of the proceedings of city council meetings so that people can see how well the councillors are representing their needs.
( With inputs from Pon Vasanth B.A, Aloysius Xavier Lopez, R. Srikanth, S. Ganesan, C. Jaisankar, V. Venkatasubramanian, B. Tilak Chandar, P.V. Srividya, Karthik Madhavan, R. Akileish, S.P. Saravanan, and Vignesh Vijayakumar)
