State does away with mandatory appointment of govt official for housing society elections

Cooperation minister Balasaheb Patil on Monday made the announcement in the Legislative Assembly during his reply to the debate on budgetary demands for the department.

Mumbai: The state government has decided to do away with the compulsion of appointment of a government official to conduct the elections of housing societies with less than 250 members. The state government has decided to allow societies to appoint a member of the society to conduct the election in a bid to lower the financial burden.

The official notification will be issued soon, Cooperation minister Balasaheb Patil said. (HT FILE)

Cooperation minister Balasaheb Patil on Monday made the announcement in the Legislative Assembly during his reply to the debate on budgetary demands for the department. “We had appointed 350 officials to conduct the elections in the housing societies. This would delay the elections due to the shortfall of manpower. Also, many societies had requested us to cancel the provision as it puts an additional financial burden on them. After due deliberation, we have decided to cancel this compulsion. A society can now appoint a member who is not contesting the election and who has no dues pending as returning officer. The official notification will be issued soon,” Patil said.

Meanwhile, public works minister Ashok Chavan, while replying to the debate on the budgetary demands, said that they expect the construction of the Shivaji memorial in the Arabian sea to begin soon.“We have replied to all the queries raised by the Bombay high court which has stayed the project for the environmental issues. We have requested the court to hold the hearings soon and vacate the stay. We expect the construction of the memorial, whose bhoomi pujan was done by prime minister Narendra Modi in 2016, to begin soon,” he said.

Agriculture minister Dada Bhuse said that the state government was considering a cash transfer to the farmers in lieu of crop insurance, which has not proved beneficial to them.

“Under the existing PM crop insurance scheme, only 42% farmers have got the insurance and the amount paid is just 67% of the premium amount. It has not been able to provide any respite to the farmers. We have requested the central government to allow us to go ahead with the Beed model of crop insurance which is much better than the central government scheme. If the central government does not approve our proposal, we may introduce a scheme wherein we will be depositing cash in the accounts of the farmers on the lines of the PM Kisan scheme,” he said.