The 74th Amendment: Municipalities

a Municipal Council for a smaller urban area; and

a Municipal Corporation for a larger urban area.

Who decides which is which. The Governor, by public notification, having regard to population, density, the revenue generated for local administration, the percentage of employment in non-agricultural activities, economic importance and such other factors as he thinks fit.

The industrial township proviso. A municipality may not be constituted in an urban area where an industrial establishment provides or proposes to provide the municipal services, if the Governor so specifies. This is the one place in Part IXA where an urban population may lawfully have no elected local government, and it is worth knowing because it is the exception a question can be built on.

Why the three fold classification matters. Village panchayats are all of one kind at each tier, and towns are not. A settlement of eight thousand becoming urban and a city of eight million cannot have the same institution, so Part IXA classifies by the character of the area rather than by a tier.

2. Wards Committees, article 243S

There shall be constituted Wards Committees, consisting of one or more wards, within the territorial area of a municipality having a population of three lakhs or more.

The State decides their composition and territorial area and how their seats are filled.

Every municipal councillor of a ward within the committee's area is a member of it, and where the committee is one ward that councillor is its chairperson, and where it is two or more wards the chairperson is elected by the committee from among those councillors.

And the State may constitute other committees besides, under clause (5).

The point of the article. In a city of several million a councillor may represent fifty thousand people, so the "local" body is not local at all. The Wards Committee is the attempt to create a level below the corporation, and it is the nearest urban equivalent of a Gram Sabha.

But notice the difference from a Gram Sabha. A Gram Sabha is every voter. A Wards Committee is composed as the State provides, and in most States it is composed of councillors and nominees rather than residents. This is the standing criticism of the urban half of the reform: the citizen has no assembly.

3. The District Planning Committee, article 243ZD

There shall be constituted in every State at the district level a District Planning Committee to consolidate the plans prepared by the panchayats and the municipalities in the district and to prepare a draft development plan for the district as a whole.

Not less than four-fifths of its members shall be elected by and from amongst the elected members of the district panchayat and of the municipalities in the district, in proportion to the ratio between the rural and urban population of the district.

In preparing the plan it shall have regard to matters of common interest between the panchayats and the municipalities, including spatial planning, the sharing of water and other physical and natural resources, the integrated development of infrastructure and environmental conservation, and to the resources available; and it shall consult such institutions as the Governor specifies.

The chairperson forwards the plan to the State Government.

This is the most under-used article in both Parts and the best material for a distinguishing answer. It is the only provision in the Constitution that makes rural and urban local government plan together. A city's water, its landfill, its quarries and its outward growth all lie in the villages around it, and article 243ZD is the mechanism by which those villages have four-fifths elected representation in deciding the district plan.

4. The Metropolitan Planning Committee, article 243ZE

There shall be constituted in every metropolitan area a Metropolitan Planning Committee to prepare a draft development plan for the metropolitan area as a whole.

Metropolitan area, defined in article 243P, means an area of ten lakhs or more, in one or more districts, consisting of two or more municipalities or panchayats or other contiguous areas, notified by the Governor.

Not less than two-thirds of its members shall be elected by and from amongst the elected members of the municipalities and the chairpersons of the panchayats in the metropolitan area, in proportion to their populations; and the State may provide for the representation of the Union and State Governments and of such organisations as are necessary.

Note the drop from four-fifths to two-thirds and the express space for the two Governments: the drafters accepted that a metropolitan plan cannot be made by local bodies alone, and kept an elected majority anyway.

The Twelfth Schedule

Eighteen subjects, under article 243W. Urban planning including town planning; regulation of land use and construction of buildings; planning for economic and social development; roads and bridges; water supply; public health, sanitation, conservancy and solid waste management; fire services; urban forestry, protection of the environment and promotion of ecological aspects; safeguarding the interests of weaker sections; slum improvement and upgradation; urban poverty alleviation; urban amenities such as parks, gardens and playgrounds; promotion of cultural, educational and aesthetic aspects; burials and cremations; cattle pounds and prevention of cruelty to animals; vital statistics including registration of births and deaths; public amenities including street lighting, parking lots, bus stops and public conveniences; and the regulation of slaughter houses and tanneries.

Like the Eleventh Schedule it is a menu for devolution under a permissive article, not a grant. And in cities the gap is wider than in villages, because water, transport, housing and planning are commonly run by State parastatals that no municipality controls.

A worked example

A city of forty lakhs has a Municipal Corporation. Its landfill is in a village panchayat eleven kilometres outside the municipal limits, its water is drawn from a reservoir in the next district, and a State development authority, not the corporation, prepares its master plan and allots land. Residents of a ward complain that they were never consulted about a flyover.

On the ward. A Wards Committee is mandatory, the population exceeding three lakhs. Whether the residents may attend it depends on how the State composed it under article 243S(2), which is where the urban reform is weakest.

On the landfill and the reservoir. These are exactly what article 243ZD names as matters of common interest between panchayats and municipalities, being the sharing of physical and natural resources and environmental conservation, and the District Planning Committee, four-fifths of whose members are elected local representatives in the rural to urban population ratio, is the body that should be resolving them.

On the metropolitan scale. Ten lakhs or more makes it a metropolitan area if notified, so a Metropolitan Planning Committee with a two-thirds elected membership should be preparing the draft development plan for the area as a whole.

On the development authority. Nothing in Part IXA abolishes it. Article 243W is permissive, so if the State has not devolved planning, the corporation does not have it.

That last line is the honest conclusion about the 74th Amendment. It guaranteed that towns would have elected councils on time. It did not guarantee that those councils would govern the town.

Distinctions that carry marks

What the 74th Amendment is NOT

It is not a separate scheme. It is Part IX applied to towns with four additions, and the two commissions are shared.

It is not a transfer of urban government to municipalities. Article 243W is permissive, and in most large cities water, transport, housing and master planning remain with State authorities.

The Wards Committee is not an urban Gram Sabha. It is a committee of councillors, not an assembly of residents, and only in municipalities of three lakhs or more.

And the planning committees are not optional. Articles 243ZD and 243ZE say "there shall be constituted". Their neglect in practice is a failure to comply, not a permitted choice.

Quick revision

1. Act and dates: the Constitution (Seventy-fourth Amendment) Act, 1992, Part IXA, articles 243P to 243ZG, Twelfth Schedule, in force 1 June 1993.
2. Three bodies, 243Q: Nagar Panchayat for a transitional area, Municipal Council for a smaller urban area, Municipal Corporation for a larger urban area, classified by the Governor on population, density, revenue, non-agricultural employment and economic importance. The industrial township proviso allows no municipality at all.
3. Wards Committees, 243S: mandatory in municipalities of three lakhs or more; ward councillors are members; composition otherwise left to the State. Not an assembly of residents.
4. District Planning Committee, 243ZD: in every district; consolidates panchayat and municipal plans into a draft district plan; not less than four-fifths elected by and from the elected members of the district panchayat and the municipalities in the rural to urban population ratio; regard to spatial planning, sharing of water and other resources, infrastructure and environmental conservation.
5. Metropolitan Planning Committee, 243ZE: in every metropolitan area, meaning ten lakhs or more with two or more municipalities or panchayats; not less than two-thirds elected; the two Governments may be represented.
6. Shared institutions: the same State Election Commission (243ZA) and the same State Finance Commission (243Y), which is why Kishansing Tomar, a municipal case on article 243U, governs panchayats under article 243E as well.
7. Twelfth Schedule, 18 subjects, under the permissive article 243W.

Test yourself

1. State the key features of the 74th Amendment. It inserted Part IXA, articles 243P to 243ZG, and the Twelfth Schedule, with effect from 1 June 1993. Article 243Q requires a Nagar Panchayat for a transitional area, a Municipal Council for a smaller urban area and a Municipal Corporation for a larger urban area, the classification being made by the Governor. Article 243R requires all seats to be filled by direct election from wards. Article 243T reserves seats for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to population, one-third of those for their women, and not less than one-third of all seats for women, and enables reservation for backward classes. Article 243U fixes a five year term with elections before expiry or within six months of dissolution. Article 243W enables devolution with the Twelfth Schedule's eighteen subjects. Articles 243Y and 243ZA place municipal finance and municipal elections with the same State Finance Commission and State Election Commission as for panchayats. And articles 243S, 243ZD and 243ZE add Wards Committees, District Planning Committees and Metropolitan Planning Committees.

2. What is genuinely different about the urban Part, and why? Four things. The three fold classification of municipalities, because towns differ in kind, whereas panchayat tiers are uniform, and because the Governor must judge population, density, revenue, non-agricultural employment and economic importance. The Wards Committee, because a city councillor may represent fifty thousand people, so a level below the council is needed if local government is to be local. The District Planning Committee, because a city's water, waste and outward growth lie in the villages around it and somebody must make one plan out of the rural and urban plans. And the Metropolitan Planning Committee, because a metropolitan area of ten lakhs or more spans several municipalities and panchayats and no single body within it can plan for the whole.

3. Explain article 243ZD and say why it matters. There shall be constituted in every State at the district level a District Planning Committee, to consolidate the plans prepared by the panchayats and the municipalities in the district and to prepare a draft development plan for the district as a whole. Not less than four-fifths of its members must be elected by and from amongst the elected members of the district panchayat and of the municipalities, in proportion to the district's rural and urban populations. In preparing the plan it must have regard to matters of common interest between panchayats and municipalities, including spatial planning, the sharing of water and other physical and natural resources, the integrated development of infrastructure and environmental conservation, and to available resources, and it must consult the institutions the Governor specifies; the chairperson forwards the plan to the State Government. It matters because it is the only provision in the Constitution that makes rural and urban local government plan together, and because it gives the villages that carry a city's landfill, water and expansion a four-fifths elected voice in the district plan.

4. Compare the Gram Sabha with the Wards Committee. The Gram Sabha, under article 243, is a body consisting of every person registered in the electoral rolls of the village, so it is an assembly of citizens, and it exists in every village by force of the definition itself, though its powers are what State law gives it under article 243A. A Wards Committee under article 243S exists only in a municipality of three lakhs or more, its composition and the manner of filling its seats are left entirely to State law, and the only members the Constitution guarantees are the councillors representing the wards it covers, one of whom is its chairperson. So the rural citizen has a constitutional assembly with uncertain powers, and the urban citizen has no assembly at all, which is the sharpest criticism of the urban half of the 1992 reform.

5. Why is Kishansing Tomar authority for both Parts? Because it was decided on article 243U, the municipal provision on duration, which is in identical terms to article 243E for panchayats, and because articles 243ZA and 243Y make the State Election Commission and the State Finance Commission common to both Parts. The Court held that elections to a municipality must be completed before the expiry of its five year term, that administrative difficulties such as delimitation and the preparation of electoral rolls do not justify postponement, that the powers of a State Election Commission in respect of the conduct of elections are no less than those of the Election Commission of India in its domain, and that where a State does not render assistance the Commission may seek a writ of mandamus from the High Court and then the Supreme Court. Since the same Commission conducts panchayat elections under the same design, the holding governs the rural bodies equally.