Uniform rules for ADCs before polls

SHILLONG: District Council Affairs (DCA) Minister James Sangma proposed a uniform set of rules for all three Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) of Khasi, Jaintia and Garo Hills.
The plan of the government is to complete the task of having uniform council rules before the polls.
KHADC and JHADC polls will be held early part of next year.
In this regard, the second review meeting was held on Thursday in which the District Council Affairs (DCA) Department sought amendments to rules of various ADCs in Meghalaya.
“As far as possible, there needs to be certain uniformity in the AD rules, be it related to elections, service rules and financial rules,” he said.
Many suggestions were given and many points in the rules of the various ADCs need to be looked into and corrected even as he said there are many mistakes.
“The three ADCs have given their independent suggestions and we will ensure that such suggestions can bring about consensus,” Sangma added.
He informed that the government has constituted a task force committee to look into the amendment of the service rules and financial rules of the various ADCs that was notified on Wednesday.
The Task Force will have two members who will be attending on behalf of ADCs.
There will be officers from Law department, Personnel and Finance department.
“We will finish the process as fast as possible, matters such as amendments to the rules requires a lot of interventions and we will refer the matter to the Law department,” Sangma said.
The District Council Affairs minister further added, “We would not like to rush into these things. Because when these rules are framed and when these rules are corrected or amended, they must continue for a long period of time without any margin for error. The process will take time.”