Bhubaneswar City Leaders gets inducted on Urban Development

Bhubaneswar : The City leaders from Bhubaneswar i.e all the newly elected corporators got inducted on Urban Development and governance here in Bhubaneswar. The induction was designed to impart desired knowledge on urban governance and development amongst the elected representatives of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation. This is first of its technical capacity building initiative under ‘City Leaders Programme’ initiated aiming at addressing the much-overlooked challenges of empowering the public representatives.

This workshop was conducted by BMC in collaboration Housing & Urban Development Department, State Urban Development Agency and Janagraha, an organization working on urban and civic issues.

Mayor, Bhubaneswar Smt Sulochana Das, Director of Municipal Administraton, Shri Sangramjit Nayak, Deputy Mayor Manjulata Kanhar, Commissioner Vijay Amruta Kulange,Addl.Commissioner Suryawanshi Mayur Vikash and Addl.Commissioner Binaya Kumar Dash in presence of corporators inaugurated the workshop. The day long workshop covered areas like Urban Sanitation, Housing, City Finance, Jaga Mission, different urban development schemes etc with concern officials from Department of Housing and Urban Development explaining and answering questions from the people representatives.

“This was crucial for BMC to hold such an intense induction as a total of 69% corporators are first timers and have very limited knowledge about the functioning of an important ULB like Bhubaneswar, said Commissioner, BMC.

With an objective to impart sound knowledge on the roles and responsibilities of urban local bodies, Corporators, Mayors/Chairpersons, city finances & city budget and urban schemes, such capacity building will be very instrumental in educating the first timers to know the dynamics of urban governance, said Mayor Ms Sulochana Das.

She added that “We the BMC team need to work together for development and well being of our society and city. We are trying hard to convert slums into ideal colonies as a mainstreaming and empowerment initiative of the Govt”.

While present perspective utters about inclusive development, the corporators will get input of developing strategy, find out people in need, chalk out communities to utilise Govt.welfare schemes and ultimately preparing communities to participate in the process of city development initiatives. On the otherhand, the knowledge imparted to the corporators will be transferred to fellow community members for understanding of city’s goal and objectives so that communities can better understand their responsibilities. Every Corporator is the heart and soul of their area,they can better understand and come out with creative plan ,told DMA,Shri Nayak.He also told that understanding of finances and urban schemes and missions of state government and represent their wards accordingly is very important.

Amongst others Shri Kalyan Ratha , Special Secretary in H&UD Department addressed the corporators on Bhubaneswa’s journey in Urban Sanitation. In his presentation, Shri Rath elaborated how the Waste to Wealth initiative by Govt of Odisha has been well appreciated across. He urged the corporators to proactively participate in the urban sanitation initiatives and ensure the effective service delivery.

Similarly Joint Secretary in the Dept Shri Sarada Prasad Panda delivered the highlights on the Financial Inclusion and Inclusive urban development initiatives by State Urban Development Agency.

Additional Secretary Shri Sushant Kumar Mishra, briefed the corporators on the Housing and 5T initiatives of the Govt. Also, DMA Shri Nayak reiterated 5T mantra in his address.

City Leaders Programme’ is an initiative by Janagraha, a social and developmental organization working with 87,000+ councillors across 4,700+ Indian cities & empowers them with knowledge and tools in a sustained manner which is critical to fixing indian cities, and to fight impending global challenges coming in the way. With such a programme, the idea is to enable the public representatives to go beyond winning elections to creating their cities into exemplary models of socio-economic transformation.