In a first, municipal wards in Delhi set to reduce

While Delhi has had civic governance since December 1862, the current municipal body came into existence on April 7, 1958 through a merger of 12 smaller municipal committees and boards which were represented by 80 municipal councillors

New Delhi: The delimitation commission appointed by the Centre to redraw the boundaries of municipal wards in Delhi submitted its draft report last week, reducing the number of total wards in Delhi from 272 to 250 as the civic body in Delhi was unified, brining together the three civic bodies that were born out of it in 2012.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was trifurcated in 2012. In May this year, the BJP-led central government unified the civic body and has reduced the total number of wards from 272 to 250. (HT Photo)

To be sure, this is the third time in less than 15 years that the contours of the municipal wards in Delhi have changed. First in 2007, the number of wards was increased from 134 to 272. In 2016-17, the total number of wards were kept unchanged at 272, but their distribution across assembly constituencies was changed. During the current delimitation, the number of wards have been reduced from 272 to 250.

While Delhi has had civic governance since December 1862, the current municipal body came into existence on April 7, 1958 through a merger of 12 smaller municipal committees and boards which were represented by 80 municipal councillors. Of these, 12 seats were reserved for candidates from the Scheduled Caste.

Deep Chand Mathur, who worked as the MCD’s director of information between 1980 and 2011, said that there have been five major changes in the number of representatives at Delhi’s main urban local body. “There were 80 councillors in 1958, but within a decade need was felt for decentralization due to expansion of the population. In 1963, a number of powers were delegated to zonal committees. And in 1967, the number of councillors was raised to 100. The number stayed unchanged for the next 26 years. Then in 1993, the strength of elected councillors was raised to 134,” he said.

Yogender Singh Maan, retired MCD director (information), who has been associated with compilation of corporation’s official history, said the elections between 1993 and 2002 were fought on 134 seats. But, the number of wards was increased to 272 seats in 2007. “The sudden doubling of municipal seats was also criticized as being irrational. The old meeting room in Town Hall could not even accommodate all the 272 elected councillors. Then, there were 14 MLAs who were also nominated as members. The auditorium in the Town Hall was converted into the house chamber. This is the first time a reduction in wards is being carried out in MCD,” he added.

In the pre-Independence era, there was an arrangement of each ward sending a Hindu and a Muslim representative along with a European member to represent the area, Maan said.

A senior municipal officer who is associated with the current delimitation exercise said prior to 2016-17 re-carving of wards and their distribution, each assembly constituency had four municipal wards each. “This was changed. After the 2016-17 delimitation, the number of wards in assembly constituencies varied between three and five. Essentially, the newly developed areas such as Matiala were given more representation in the MCD House,” the official said.

Of the total 70 assembly constituencies, 68 are administered by MCD. New Delhi and Delhi Cantonment assembly seats come under the jurisdiction of the New Delhi Municipal Council and the Cantonment Board respectively.

Currently, the MCD’s deliberative wing (the elected House of the councillors) is headed by the Special Officer appointed by the Centre. The special officer will continue till fresh elections are held. Such officers have managed MCD’s affairs between March 24, 1975-July 4, 1977 and April 11, 1980- February 28, 1983 when the civic body was suspended.

City to have 250 civic wards. 

Srikanth Viswanathan chief executive officer of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy — a Bengaluru based non-profit — said that a point for reflection from an urban policy standpoint is the effect of delimitation and redrawing of ward boundaries every 10 years on community identity and community ownership of neighbourhoods. “Combined with rotation and reservations of seats to city councils, this could have an impact on building trust and engagement between citizens, councillors and ward level officials. The only condition under which 250 wards will work meaningfully for Delhi is if they have area sabhas within wards at polling booth level and have sufficient number of community officials and engineers to serve them. Else, wards would be too large for effective governance in terms of area and population,” he added.

Atul Goyal, who heads RWA body URJA, said the municipal governance in Delhi should be decentralised but “nobody buys this formula”.

“The population of city has increased. Some municipal wards are huge and RWAs are bigger than some village panchayat. In such a scenario, how will the local issues be reflected at zonal level. We need more decentralisation, not less,” he added. Goyal also criticised the use of 2011 Census data for delimitation, which according to him, is far different from the ground realities.