Rajkot: The industrial town of Morbi and half-a-dozen other municipalities could be upgraded to municipal corporations in the near future. The Gujarat Municipal Finance Board (GMFB) shot off a letter to a few municipalities to provide financial details of the last three years, for the purpose of turning these municipalities into municipal corporations.The letters, written on July 16 by GFMB, were sent to the Morbi, Surendrangar-Dudhrej, Gandhidham, Anand, Nadiad, Mehsana, Navsari and Vijapur municipalities. The letter said, “To convert your municipality to a municipal corporation we need details to examine the financial situation of the civic bodies.” GMFB asked these municipalities to provide details of income and expenses of past three years, sanctioned and filled posts, salary expenses of past three years and bifurcation of expenses into revenue and grants from GMFB.Chief executive officer of GMFB, B C Patni, told TOI, “The proposal to upgrade these municipalities were submitted to the state urban development department from the municipality or its office-bearers. In reference to that, the urban development department has sought details which we have asked the municipalities to provide.” The municipality has to meet certain criteria for the upgrade on parameters like a population of more than three lakh in the municipality area and more then 75% of people must be engaged in non-agriculture activities.The urban development department has asked for this data to evaluate how the municipality can generate revenue and what its expanses are and what staff requirements it will have if it is upgraded. The chief officer of Morbi municipality, Girish Sarai, said, “When municipality is upgraded to a corporation the administration changes, it needs senior people in the administration and more technical experts. That is why we have been asked to provide details from the last three years about revenue and grants used in our projects.”According to the 2011 census, the population of the Morbi municipality was 2.25 lakh. It will now be around 2.50 lakh. According to Sarai, if surrounding villages like Ravapar, Gajpar, Lalpar, Sakat-Sanala, Mahendranagar and Nani Vavdi are merged in the civic body limits, it will meet the population criteria.The chief officer of Surendranagar-Dudhrej municipality, Amit Pandya, said, “The government has been making estimates and to meet the population criteria, Wadhvan will have to be merged with our municipality.” The commercial town of Kutch, Gandhidham, is also on the list. The population of Gandhidham is currently 2 lakh and it will need to absorb the surrounding villages, to meet the population criteria.

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