Apart from the 227 newly elected businessmen in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), 10 more members will be named as candidates. municipal councilors or corporations in the civic council after the election of the mayor of Mumbai.
These nominated councilors are high-ranking members of the party who will be incorporated into the general body of representatives elected by their respective parties.
Earlier, there was a provision of having a maximum of five nominated corporators in any civic body in Maharashtra. However, in 2023 the Urban Development Directorate (UDD) increased this number to 10.
For the next term, there will be four nominated corporators of the BJP in the BMC, while the Shiv Sena (UBT) will have three. Congress, AIMIM and Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde It is expected that each of them will have a corporate nominee in the Chamber.
During the previous term, between 2017 and 2022, in the BMC, of the five nominated corporators, two were from the BJP, two from the undivided Shiv Sena and one from the Congress.
Eligibility and nomination process
The provision to incorporate corporate nominees into the Chamber was first made in 1994, when the Bombay The Municipal Corporations Act (MMC) was amended. As nominated companies are not chosen through elections, each candidate must meet a list of eligibility criteria from the state government.
Some of the eligibility criteria include: You must have a minimum of five years working as a doctor in a civic hospital, or you must have worked for at least five years in a recognized NGO in Mumbai. Any person who has knowledge of municipal or labor laws or who has served a minimum two-year period as a municipal commissioner or a five-year period as a deputy municipal commissioner or deputy municipal commissioner may also be eligible to be nominated as a corporator on the council.
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Government documents state that the purpose of having nominated corporations in the House is to qualitatively improve the functioning of municipal corporations by utilizing their expertise.
Once the results of the elections are known, the total number of seats (10) is distributed among the political parties based on the seats they obtained in the elections. Civic authorities said the current ratio on the basis of which seats are reserved states that any political party will have to win a minimum of five seats to have its own corporator nominee. Additionally, for a maximum of 20 elected corporations, there will be one corporator nominated in the Chamber by each political party. Therefore, as the BJP has won 89 seats, it will get four nominated corporators in the House. Likewise, the Sena UBT, which won 65 seats, will get three nominated corporators. The Shiv Sena, Congress and AIMIM, which won 29, 24 and 8 seats each, will get one corporator each in the House.
Powers
The 10 nominated corporators will take part in the daily proceedings of the civic body, from raising questions in the House to initiating notice of motions and questions of orders. Nominated corporators also have the right to attend special meetings chaired by the commissioner and have the right to raise suggestions and objections on the basis of BMC recommendations. budget and expenses.
However, unlike elected corporators in the BMC, nominated representatives do not have the right to vote, so they are generally not included in some of the main statutory committees, such as the standing committee or the improvement committee, which are responsible for formulating key policies.
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As per the MMC Act, all key resolutions and policies are passed through these committees through a voting process. Likewise, the selection of the presidents of these committees is also done by voting. “If a political party inducts a nominated member into one of these committees, then it will lose one vote. That is why political parties do not induct nominated corporations into statutory committees,” an official said.
A chosen corporator receives a development fund worth Rs 1.6 crore annually. On the other hand, corporate nominees get an annual fund of Rs 60 lakh. Additionally, both elected and nominated corporators receive a monthly honorarium of Rs 25,000 from the civic body.
“If a nominated corporator wants to carry out any kind of development work in any area of Mumbai, then he has to take an NOC from the sitting elected corporator of that ward. If the sitting corporator does not give an NOC, then the nominee will not be allowed to carry out the work,” said Arvind Bhosale, who served as a nominated corporator in the undivided Sena BMC between 2017 and 2022. In the party, Bhosale joined the Sena UBT.
“Corporate nominees are usually experienced people who have been associated with the corporation for a long time directly or indirectly. Therefore, the knowledge they bring usually helps in formulating key policies. Also, corporator nominees can find flaws in any proposed policy or regulation and can send them back to the administration for reconsideration,” Bhalchandra Shirsat, who served as the BJP’s corporator nominee between 2017 and 2022, told The Associated Press. indian express.