Mayawati govt reduces tenure of Co-oP society members

Lucknow, Aug 23 (UNI) In a major setback to the Opposition Samajwadi Party, Uttar Pradesh government today reduced tenure of cooperative societies members in the state, dominated by the main opposition party.

State cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mayawati reduced the tenure of members of the cooperative societies from the present 5 years to 2 years with re-introducing appointment of administrator in the societies.

Briefing newspersons, Principal secretary to Chief Minister, Shailesh Krishna said the decision was taken in view of several irregularities in these cooperative societies. ''By reducing the tenure of the members, they will now be more active and effective'', he added.

Mr Krishna said the government has also re-introduced the appointment of administrator in these societies which was abolished by the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav government.

Government will bring an ordinance to this effect and all the cooperative societies would be taken over by the administrator within next six days.

With this new directive, the Samajwadi Party, which has a strong hold on all the cooperative societies in the state, will have to shed their powers.

In another decision, the government today decided to amend the norms for the district planning committee under the 73-74th amendment of the Constitution on Panchayati Raj.

Now the government will allot funds to the committee without any sanction of the project. Earlier, the funds were only given once the scheme was passed by the committee.

The government has also decided to abolish the minimum of 30 members in the committee while now Mayor and chairman of the district panchayat will not be the members of the committee.

However, a designated minister will continue to be the chairman of the committee.

UNI