HYDERABAD: With the merger of 27 surrounding municipalities and the expansion of the GHMC from 150 to 300 wards, the civic body is set for a major administrative restructuring. Officials said the proposed plan includes increasing the existing six zones to 12 and the current 30 circles to 60 to ensure better service delivery, decentralised governance and improved civic amenities across the expanded limits.
The GHMC now covers nearly 2,000 sq km, incorporating areas within and around the ORR of the TCUR. Under the proposed structure, each of the 60 circles will oversee five wards, while the 12 zones will supervise 25 circles each, enabling tighter monitoring and more efficient management. The expanded limits include the entire Hyderabad district and portions of Rangareddy, Medchal-Malkajgiri and Sangareddy districts.
Officials said the restructuring has become essential to manage the larger population and area. Each ward will now have around 50,000 persons, with population variation capped at 10% of the average. The new boundaries have been drawn by considering natural features and contiguity.
The addition of zones and circles is expected to ease administrative burden and improve grievance redressal. Officials noted that different areas face different civic issues, and increasing the number of circles will allow local officers to address problems effectively. Officials said they received 280 applications on Thursday.
Delimitation ‘opaque’, meant to benefit AIMIM: BJP
The BJP has accused the state government of carrying out the merger of 27 urban local bodies (ULBs) with the GHMC and notifying the delimitation of 300 wards in a “hurried and opaque manner”. The party alleged that the exercise reflects the ruling party’s “appeasement politics” and said it had received inputs suggesting that AIMIM leaders, with the tacit support of the government, influenced the process to secure an electoral advantage. Marri Shashidhar Reddy, chairman of the BJP’s election commission affairs committee, wrote a letter to GHMC Commissioner RV Karnan, saying the delimitation process appears to have begun even before the relevant ordinances were issued. Pointing to a report by the Centre for Good Governance, he said, “This makes it evident that the government pre-decided the merger and delimitation and only later issued ordinances to give it legal shape.” Calling gerrymandering a “serious threat to democratic fairness”, he urged the GHMC to disclose all data, maps and criteria used for ward reorganisation to ensure transparency.