Gears turning, Delhi’s civic bodies to merge on Saturday | Latest News Delhi - Hindustan Times
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Gears turning, Delhi’s civic bodies to merge on Saturday

May 21, 2022 12:54 AM IST

The Centre on Friday appointed Ashwini Kumar, a 1992 batch IAS officer, as the “special officer”, and sitting South MCD commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, a 1998 batch officer, as the new commissioner of the unified entity

As the unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi comes into existence from Sunday, marking an end to a decade old trifurcation experiment of decentralisation of urban local governance in the capital, the special officer and commissioner, appointed by the Centre on Friday, will have a busy couple of months as several challenges -- setting uniform regulations and tax regimes, and tackling the crippling financial crisis, among others -- lie ahead for the new administration.

The municipal corporation consists of an elected deliberative wing of councillors, headed by the mayor, and an executive wing of municipal officials headed by the commissioner. (HT Archive)
The municipal corporation consists of an elected deliberative wing of councillors, headed by the mayor, and an executive wing of municipal officials headed by the commissioner. (HT Archive)

The Centre on Friday appointed Ashwini Kumar, a 1992 batch IAS officer, as the “special officer”, and sitting South MCD commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, a 1998 batch officer, as the new commissioner of the unified entity. The two will hold the executive and deliberative powers for shaping up one of the largest corporations of the world in the coming months.

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The municipal corporation consists of an elected deliberative wing of councillors, headed by the mayor, and an executive wing of municipal officials headed by the commissioner. Till the delimitation exercise -- to reset municipal ward boundaries -- is conducted, elections are held and the new corporation is constituted, the special officer will hold all the powers of the elected wing, the act passed by the Parliament mandates.

Experts, retired officials and civic functionaries feel that the two officers will first need to take steps to give a proper chain of command to the unified MCD by appointing department heads, allocate and shift offices, and bring uniformity in regulation and tax structures, in addition to tackling the ongoing financial crisis in the municipal corporations -- a key reason cited by the Centre for the unification exercise.

A senior municipal law officer said that the three corporations will legally cease to exist and all their employees, offices, assets, liabilities, and legal obligations will be transferred to the unified entity from Sunday morning. “A series of appointments, transfers and orders to bring uniformity in regulations and fees across the city will have to be followed,” the official explained.

The three corporations have variations in fees and taxes for licenses and services, which will have to be made uniform by the incoming special officer and commissioner.

Several civic functionaries expect confusion in the initial days as they feel that, unlike the 2011-12 trifurcation process, the civic bodies have done minimal preparation for the reunification.

Former municipal chief law officer Anil Gupta said that the first step will be to appoint the heads of major departments like engineering, education, sanitation and public health, among others, to continue the normal operation of these critical services. “The deputy commissioner of the 12 zones can be changed later but departments require immediate appointments. The unified MCD had six additional commissioners but currently, there are 10 additional commissioners. So some will have to be transferred. A municipal secretary, who acts a link between the deliberative and executive wing, will be appointed immediately to maintain the structure of the corporation,” Gupta said.

Variations and uniformity

Over the last 10 years, the three MCDs have brought about several changes in the operating regulations and tax regime of the civic bodies -- including licenses for factory and eateries; property taxes and even payments for catching monkeys -- which will have to be revised and made uniform by the special officer in the coming months.

For example, a senior public health department official said, the south corporation issues annual licenses to eateries for 25,000, North MCD for 1,000 and EDMC for 5,000. Additionally, unlike South MCD, the other two corporations do not charge 1% education cess.

“It may take one-two months to regularise the rates, during which time people will naturally wait... This may bring revenue collection to halt during this transition period,” the official said.

A senior law official said that the three corporations also have differences in policies and have taken differing stands in court cases. For example, there is no uniformity in the meat policies of different corporations, including on the minimum distance of a meat shop from a place of worship which varies from 100m to 150m. Further, in an ongoing case with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority, different corporations have taken a different stand on whether construction projects above 500sqm need mandatory registration with RERA, an official said.

Civic officials are certain that the headquarters of the unified MCD will remain at the Civic Centre on Minto Road. Currently, North and South MCD offices are located at Civic Center and EDMC operates from Pattparganj industrial area office. ​The common headquarters is likely to put an end to a 2,900 ​crore rent sharing controversy between North and South bodies.

“A common establishment schedule will be formed by the central establishment department and orders for these series of appointments will be issued by the commissioner of the unified body. An order will also be issued regarding the new municipal headquarters and office space allocation,” added Gupta.

Over the last month, the central establishment department of SDMC, which has held a series of meeting with the officials from all three corporations to chalk out the broad modalities of the merger, had initially estimated that around 700 posts will have to be surrendered through the merger as three sets of head of departments, committees, mayors will be merged into a single set of posts. “The report was not finalised and some of the data from the hospital wing of North MCD was not provided. The special officer will have to take this decision,” an official from the department said.

Kumar and Bharti will also have to tackle the ongoing financial crisis which was one of the key reasons cited for the unification. It still remains unclear if the unified MCD will be funded by state government or Center or both.

East and North MCD have salary pendency of five months and three months respectively and there is a collective liability over 16,000 crore, which includes loans from the Delhi government. Various municipal employee unions have sought a one-time package to clear salary and pension arrears of 200,000 municipal workers and pensioners.

Common online services and websites

The work on setting up a common website for MCD and merger of online service has been initiated with the help of IT department and National Iinformatics Centre (NIC), and a common landing frontpage page will be available from May 22, said a senior SDMC official.

“Such a large-scale change cannot happen suddenly. All corporations have different provisions for licenses, so the special officer will have to take decisions on that. The portal will be unified but users will be directed to their respective service based on their area until such changes for uniformity are issued by the special officer,” the official said.

Under the existing arrangement, the municipal commissioner is allowed to take decisions and approve projects up to 5 crore at his own level, while those above 5 crore will be sent to the standing committee and house of councillors for approval. Currently, since elections are yet to be held, the special officer will take calls on the projects above 5 crore.

HT has earlier reported that a section of senior BJP councillors have been pushing for a committee to be formed to aid the special officer.

Yogender Maan, retired director of information in North MCD, said that originally, the director of local bodies was expected to keep uniformity in appointments, common seniority list of officials and making lead corporations on individual subjects but the variance has emerged in last 5 years in several issues. “There will be no problems in matters like toll tax, IT services, press department etc where one corporation is acting as nodal branch but several out of turn promotions have disturbed the common seniority list,” he added.

Unveiling 'Elections 2024: The Big Picture', a fresh segment in HT's talk show 'The Interview with Kumkum Chadha', where leaders across the political spectrum discuss the upcoming general elections. Watch now!
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