MCD polls: How functioning of Delhi’s civic body will change post-unification

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls counting is underway with 250 municipal councillors set to take charge of running one of the largest civic bodies in the world.

The new set of municipal councillors of Delhi will be constituting a different urban local body in comparison to what was originally scheduled in April earlier this year.

The MCD elections were originally scheduled to be held in April 2022.

On March 9, 2022, the state election commission had called a press conference to announce the schedule for the MCD polls.

However, the election commissioner said the Centre had sent a note expressing its intent to unify the three MCDs which eventually led to its postponement.

Also Read: Why MCD poll results are crucial for BJP, AAP

The urban local body structure of the Delhi’s municipal governance has been radically altered over the last nine months.

A unified corporation wields much greater power

Almost a decade after the MCD was trifurcated into three civic bodies -- North, South and East Delhi Municipal Corporation-- the national Capital once again has a unified corporation on the pattern that has existed between 1957 to 2012. Over the past one decade, North and South Delhi were sending 104 councillors while the East Delhi regions constituted their house with 64 councillors. Each of these three houses were capable of making municipal regulations in their respective areas. In many cases, the regulations and taxation regimes were different in the three parts of Delhi. Delhi once again has a structure in which 250 municipal councilors will decide the fate of policies that will affect the regulations across the city.

Unlike three mayors, three houses of councillors, three standing committee and three commissioners, Delhi will now have a single mayor, one house, one standing committee and other key organs of the MCD. Covering 97.81% of city’s geographical area and 94.23% of city’s population, the unified body and its representatives will wield significantly more power than the three smaller corporations.

The role of central government

The central government will have a more direct role in running the MCD according to the amendments brought to the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957. The Delhi municipal corporation (amendment) act, 2022 has replaced the term government by the central government. Before May 22, 2022, the three municipal corporation were under the office of Director (local bodies) in Delhi government’s Urban Development department. The union ministry of home affairs, which has supervised the unification and delimitation process, will have a much more direct role in running the affairs of corporation which has a potential to lead to a new source of friction between AAP and BJP. MCD comprises of a deliberative wing made of elected councillors and an executive wing of bureaucrats who implement the policies. The municipal commissioner and senior officials are appointed by the central government and the lieutenant governor’s office.

Administrative changes: largest government department in national Capital

The merger of three MCDs has led to restructuring of the civic bureaucracy with MCD being run by around 1.5 lakh civic officials at present. Unified MCD published its unified ‘schedule of establishment’ on 21 September 2022 through which the corporation has decided to shelve around 3,141 posts under the unified administration thereby reducing the overall number of MCD employees from 1,50,557 to 1,47,417 civic staff. According to the finalised schedule, the civic body has cut down its worker strength in departments like engineering wing, community services, and horticulture while the officially sanctioned posts will increase in the education, sanitation and revenue generation departments like property tax, advertisement and remunerative projects cell indicating need to collecting more revenue for cash strapped body. While the promise of leaner bureaucracy at the top will still take a very long time and three directors heading most of the departments will be slowly phased out with retirements and transfers, an MCD official explained.

Uniformity: East and North brought parallel to South Delhi

The unification of three corporations also triggered the requirement for uniformity in tax structures and levies. Essentially, it has translated into the tax rates of erstwhile North and East MCD areas bring brought at par with the South Delhi region. Various trade bodies and industries unions have argued that while the uniformity may be justified, the taxes should not have been increased at the rate it was. Former mayors and civic functionaries have suggested that all the tax hikes undertaken by the bureaucrats in the transition period can be reviewed by the new elected wing that will come up after the elections.

Reduction in number representatives and much larger wards

The act of Parliament which unified the three erstwhile municipal corporations mandated a new delimitation exercise reducing the number of wards in the city to a maximum of 250 units. On October 17 2022, the delimitation order was issued by the ministry of home affairs and 250 new wards come into existence. This is for the first time in the history of municipal corporation that the number of councilors has gone down despite the increase in the population of Delhi. In its current form, the MCD started with 80 councillors in 1958 which rose to 100 in 1967, 134 members in 1993, 272 in 2007 and 250 members in 2022. Unlike the situation in April 2022, the municipal councillors will represent a much larger population and bigger wards (an average of 65,000 people per representative). 23 wards have been permanently removed while one new ward has been constituted (Dayalpur ward in Mustafabad) as a result of this delimitation exercise.

Empowerment of bureaucrats viz-a-viz elected wing

Since early July 2022, the newly unified MCD has passed orders empowering its executive wing to: effect increases of 15% in factory licenses, health licenses (for eateries), and general trade and storage licences; and proposed a Consumer Price Index-based adjustment to property tax, with the municipal commissioner authorised to revise the levy on this basis. The moves, when seen along with the actual increases in several taxes and license fees that are under the purview of MCD point to the balance of power in the local body shifting away from its elected members to bureaucratic executive wing. A senior MCD official on condition of anonymity, said a similar automatic licensing fee increase is already in place in the New Delhi Municipal Council and the populist politics led to a situation in which many taxes were not revised over the past one decade. The newly elected councillors will also have to take a final call on these changes.

Altered annual schedule: truncated tenures?

Typically, the elections to MCD are held in April and the new sets of mayors, deputy mayors and committee heads are elected in May for a tenure of one years. Since the elections for the unified MCD took place in December, it is still not clear whether the new corporation and its new functionaries will have a small truncated tenure of 4 months or whether the first meeting of the house will be called later next year. Under the annual calendar, the budget process of MCD starts in December and lasts till February ultimately fixing the tax matrix for the subsequent financial year. The municipal commissioner is expected to present the budget proposals for 2023-24 on December 8, 2022 before the special officer appointed by the central government. The immediate challenge for the new set of councillors will be to enter this budgetary process.