A road to upgrade Mandi and Solan Municipal Councils to Municipal Corporation has been cleared after the state election commission put the process of ongoing delimitation and reservations in the two Municipal Councils in abeyance today.
A notification in this regard was issued on Thursday by the state election commission directing to put in abeyance the process of delimitation and reservations of wards in respect to Municipal Council Mandi and Solan.
The state election commission had started the process of delimitation and reservations in different Urban Local Bodies and Panchayati Raj Institutions of the state in view of proposed elections due by the end of this year.
The notification said, “The process has been kept in abeyance as the state government has decided to upgrade Solan and Mandi Municipal Councils to Municipal Corporations.”
Since a major criterion for constituting a Municipal Corporation is requirement of population of 40, 000 for forming a Municipal Corporation the delimitation and reservation for Mandi and Solan Municipal Councils would have to be taken up fresh. The population of Solan town is nearly 40, 000 but the population of Mandi is about 27,000 at present and to upgrade it many surrounding villages will have to be included in it.
The demand to upgrade Mandi and Solan Municipal Councils have been raised at Solan and Mandi for quite long as leaders from both towns had been taking up this demand at different levels and even resolutions to this effect were passed in the houses of both Municipal Councils.
The hope of up gradation was generated after Jai Ram Thakur became Chief Minister as he was in favour of Solan and Mandi becoming Municipal Corporations. People at both Mandi and Solan have hailed the decision.
Presently, there are two Municipal Corporations in the state i.e. Shimla and Dharmashala.