Delhi's three municipal corporations to be unified, bill gets Centre's nod

The Union Cabinet on Tuesday gave its nod to a bill to merge the three municipal corporations in Delhi, sources in the government said. The Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill is likely to be introduced in the ongoing Budget session of Parliament, they said.

The unified municipal corporation, the sources said, will be a well-equipped entity for optimum and even utilisation of financial resources which will reduce mounting liabilities, expenditure on the functioning of the three municipal corporations and improve the civic services of the national capital.

Some more amendments have also been cleared in the principal Act of 1957 to ensure more robust delivery architecture for greater transparency, improved governance and more efficient delivery of civic services for the people of Delhi, they said.

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The amendment provides for a unified municipal corporation of Delhi by subsuming the existing three corporations. The erstwhile Delhi Municipal Corporation was trifurcated into three municipal corporations - South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) in 2011.

The trifurcation of the corporation was uneven in terms of the territorial divisions and revenue generating potential of each corporation. As a result, there was a huge gap in the resources available to the three corporations, vis-a-vis their obligations, the sources pointed out.

The gap widened over a period of time, increasing the financial difficulties of the three municipal corporations, leaving them incapacitated to make timely payment of salaries and retirement benefits to their employees, creating serious impediments in maintaining civic services in Delhi, the sources said.

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