(1) There shall be a ward committee for each ward in a municipality to be constituted within six months of the constitution of the municipality.
(2) Each ward committee shall consist of –
(a) the member of the municipality representing the ward, who shall be the chairperson of the ward committee;
(b) not less than three and not more than ten persons representing the civic society as area sabha representatives, from the ward, to be nominated by the municipality :
Provided that if the population of the ward is not more than ten thousand, the number of nominated members shall be four, and thereafter, there shall be one additional member for every four thousand population or part thereof:
Provided further that in reckoning the number of additional members of the ward committee exceeding four, any part of less than two thousand population may be ignored:
Rights and powers of area sabha.
Area sabha representative to be ex-officio member of Ward committee.
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Provided further that at least one-third of the members shall be women and the number of members representing Scheduled Caste and Backward Class shall be in proportion to their population in that ward;
1[Provided further that when any local/gram panchayat is merged into a municipality, the incumbents of the offices of Panches and Sarpanches at the time of merger shall act as the ward committee for the geographical area so merged till such time as the next elections to that municipality are held or till the term of the erstwhile gram panchayat would have lasted, whichever is earlier.]
Explanation.— For the purposes of this section, ‘civic society’ means any non-government organization or association of persons established, constituted or registered under any law for the time being in force and working for social welfare and includes any community-based organization, professional institution and civic, health, educational, social or cultural body or any trade or industrial organization and such other association or body as the municipality may decide.
(3) A person shall be disqualified for being nominated as a member of the ward committee under clause (b) of sub-section (2) or to continue as such member, if under the provisions of any law for the time being in force, he is disqualified for being elected as a member of a municipality.
(4) The Commissioner, Executive Officer or Secretary of the municipality, as the case may be, or his representative shall be entitled to take part in the meetings and deliberations of the ward committee. The chairperson of the ward committee may request the representatives of concerned departments to be special invitees to participate in the meetings whenever problems pertaining to their departments are to be discussed.
(5) The Sanitary Inspector or any other official, as may be nominated by the municipality, shall be the Secretary of the ward committee.
All minutes of the proceedings of the meeting of the ward committee shall be recorded by the Secretary and a copy of minutes of the proceedings of each meeting shall be forwarded by him to the municipality.
(6) The meeting of the ward committee shall be held at least once in each quarter of the year and at least two-third members shall be present in each meeting.
(7) The following procedure shall be adhered to while conducting meetings of the ward committee:— ����� ���� � ��� �� MUNICIPAL CITIZENS' PARTICIPATION
1. Inserted by Haryana Act 27 of 2018.
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(a) reasonable notice of meeting shall be given at least one week in advance and placed on the notice board of the offices of the ward committee;
(b)minutes of the meeting shall be maintained and kept at its office and shall be made available to the general public for perusal;
(c) the action taken report on the minutes shall be presented at the next meeting and this information shall be made use of by the appropriate sub-committees in their functions.
(8) The term of office of the ward committee shall be coterminous with the term of office of the municipality.
12. The ward committee shall discharge the following functions, namely:—
(a) to provide assistance in solid waste management and conduct supervision of sanitation work in the ward;
(b) to provide assistance for the preparation, implementation and monitoring of the development scheme for the ward and encourage local level alternatives, initiatives or publicprivate partnership for its implementation;
(c) to encourage harmony and unity among various groups of people in the ward;
(d) to mobilize voluntary labour and donation by way of goods or money for social welfare programs and ensure people’s participation in the voluntary activities necessary for successful implementation of the developmental activities of the municipality;
(e) to provide assistance for identification of beneficiaries for the implementation of development and welfare schemes;
(f) to encourage art and cultural activities and sports and games;
(g) to assist in the timely collection of taxes, fees and other sums due to the municipality and ensure optimal collection of all revenue sources;
(h) to ensure maintenance of parks, play grounds, streets and street lights;
(i) to assist the activities of public health centres in the area, especially in disease prevention and family welfare and create arrangements to report on the incidence of epidemics and natural calamities;
Functions of ward committee.
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(j) to assist in preparation of the ward plans in a manner consistent with the district plans and complete the exercise within the time specified by the Government;
(k) to assist in preparation of the ward budget in accordance with the ward plans and complete the exercise within the time specified by the Government;
(l) to map the ward infrastructure index for that ward;
(m) to make periodical reports to the municipality in respect of the administration of the Act;
(n) to perform such other functions as may be assigned to it by the municipality.
13. The ward committee shall have the right to –
(a) obtain information about the district and municipal plans;
(b) obtain the municipal budget within reasonable time to verify, seek clarifications and suggest changes that need to be incorporated;
(c) obtain information about provision of basic services to urban poor including security of tenure at affordable prices, improved housing, water supply, sanitation, education, health and social security;
(d) be consulted in the development of land and change of land use and zoning regulations;
(e) obtain details on all revenue matters including taxes and budgetary allocations to be presented in a simplified and manageable manner;
(f) seek information from the Commissioner, Executive Officer or Secretary of the municipality, as the case may be, regarding any matter relating to the ward.
14. The ward committee shall perform the following activities, namely:—
(a) it shall decide upon agenda at its first meeting for each budget year and for each of the monthly meetings:
Provided that the chairperson may add additional agenda for any meeting or any other member may, at a meeting, move a resolution to add to the agenda, to be decided upon in the meeting in question or any subsequent meeting;
Rights of ward committee.
Activities of ward committee.
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(b) it shall prepare the annual ward plan and forward the same to the concerned municipality for its integration with the annual municipal plan.