With the mayoral elections just around the corner, the issue of the current 'one-year term' on rotational basis for the top civic posts has become a matter of debate for the outgoing mayors and civic officials.
The three civic bodies -- North Delhi Municipal Corporation, South Delhi Municipal Corporation and East Delhi Municipal Corporation will elect new mayors for their respective areas in the last week of April, with the current year being for the reserved category.
The five-year tenure for the Mayor post sees five single- year terms on a rotation basis, with the first year being reserved for women, the second open category and the remaining three also in open category, NDMC Public Relations Officer Yogendra Singh Mann said.
The current year being the third year is reserved for the SC category. While NDMC will elect its mayor on April 28, EDMC and SDMC on April 29, Mann said.
East Delhi Mayor Ram Narain Dubey believes that term should be extended from one-year to at least "20 to 25 months".
"One year is too little a term to understand and govern a civic area. As by the time a mayor understands the issues plaguing his or her area, he or she sets to leave the post for the next incumbent and the cycle goes on for five years," Dubey told PTI.
North Delhi Mayor Azad Singh too agrees that one-year cycle term be expanded to at least "two and a half years".
"One year cycle term for five successive years in just not enough. Each corporation should have at least 2.5 years so that the civic leaders can understand an implement the issues properly," Singh said.
"For north drinking water and dengue are some of the major issues and if after each year one changes the top leader than work system itself gets slowed down as the next mayor has to do it all over again," he added.
Mood in South Delhi is also quite the same an as the dates for the elections draw nearer, speculations are also running high, since the no nominations have been filed yet for the three top posts, the last date for which is tomorrow.
Leader of Opposition in SDMC Farhad Suri said, "Instead of one-year term cycle for five years for various categories, we can have a continuous cycle of a five-year term for women, reserved category, besides general category.
