Editorial
More Wards, More Commissioners
One can see the obvious reason why the Cabinet has decided to amend the Pourashava Ordinance with the objective of splitting each of the present municipal wards into three separate entities. The urban sub-centres are creaking under population pressure, so that if people are to be served in a focused manner then just like in the case of territorial administration the municipalities too need to be reorganised.
We appreciate the spirit and rationale behind the government's pourashava reform initiative; but cannot visualise how even a well-justified proliferation of wards or the glory of nomenclature change will radically improve the municipal services given the precedents being set by the present generation of ward commissioners. What has been the track-record of ward commissioners as public representatives and operatively the sheet-anchor of the elected Dhaka City Corporation? Dismal. And, this is a question-mark that dangles before our optical disc right beside the non-delivering reputation glued to the leadership image of the elected city mayor himself. The ward commissioners' presence is hardly felt at the local communities except for being besought when somebody needed a certificate to get by. And then there is that hectic activity revolving around grant of contracts for the lucre they hold.
Words have circulated periodically to the effect that ward commissioners have been involved in the law and order or price control committees, but if the test of cooking is in the pudding, then we have had very little of it really. Perhaps we were wrong to be expecting a good dividend from their actions; because, for all practical purposes, they have been toeing their party-lines making a slanging match of their inherently apolitical civic and representative role. In the process, the urban development agenda get swamped by the surge of maintenance backlogs.
Needless to say, better representation of women as ward commissioners holds the key to an improved performance of the pourashavas, let alone their effective urban empowerment. The proposed ratio of one woman ward commissioner to three men commissioners begs could be bettered after their participatory zeal witnessed at the UP polls.
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