Grassroots Democracy: Local Government in Urban Areas

How towns and cities govern themselves: Municipal Corporations, Councils and Nagar Panchayats, wards and councillors, the Mayor and Commissioner, and city services.

Key ideas

Places differ in size, so there are three kinds of urban local body: Municipal Corporation, Municipal Council and Nagar Panchayat.
A city is divided into wards, and each ward elects a councillor who raises its problems.
The Mayor is the elected head; the Municipal Commissioner is an officer appointed by the state government to run the administration.
The local body supplies water, collects garbage, keeps roads and street lights working, runs parks, schools and hospitals, and registers births and deaths.
It gets money from property tax, water charges and licence fees, and from state and central grants.
Citizens help by paying taxes on time, using bins and separating wet and dry waste, and raising problems with their councillor.

Remember

Municipal Corporation	big cities such as Mumbai or Chennai
Municipal Council	smaller cities and towns
Nagar Panchayat	a place changing from a village into a town
Ward / councillor	a small area of a city / the person it elects
Mayor / Commissioner	elected head / officer appointed by the state
74th Amendment	1992: city and town bodies in the Constitution
Property tax	paid on houses and buildings to the city

Watch out

Mixing up the Mayor (elected) and the Municipal Commissioner (appointed officer).
Mixing up the 73rd Amendment (panchayats) and the 74th (urban bodies).
Giving a city body national jobs like making laws for the whole country.

Worked example

Which TWO of these are jobs of a Municipal Corporation? (a) registering births and deaths (b) maintaining street lights (c) making laws for the whole country

Working: making laws for the whole country is done by the central government.

Answer: registering births and deaths; maintaining street lights