NEW DELHI: The Municipal Corporation of Delhi is now one entity, with the Centre on Tuesday notifying the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022, to reunify the three corporations. The gazette notification issued by Union Ministry of Law and Justice stated that the Act received the assent of President Ram Nath Kovind on April 18. Now, a fresh census is likely to be carried out to redraw the municipal wards in the city before civic elections are held.
As per the notification, all the liabilities, employees and revenue sources of the three corporations — South, North and East — will be transferred to the reunified MCD. There is still ambiguity, however, over the appointment of a special officer to run the civic body till elections are held. The elections could take about a year given that a fresh delimitation exercise has to be carried out.
Officials said there was no word yet on who shall be appointed to the post and the matter is being looked into directly by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. “We don’t have any clarity as to who will be appointed as the special officer, giving effect to the merger, as it is being directly dealt with by the Home Minister and his core team. It may take at least a week more for the ministry to make the appointment. The officer, in all probability, will be a bureaucrat. The MHA will also appoint the commissioner of the unified body, who will be discharging all the executive affairs,” said a senior official.
For the post of the commissioner, names of several IAS officers who have previously served in the municipal corporations are doing the rounds. These include Puneet Goel and P K Gupta, both of whom have served as commissioners of the South Corporation previously. Gupta’s was one of the longest stints as commissioner in the civic body. “Among the existing commissioners, if it’s based on seniority, Gyanesh Bharti, a 1998-batch officer and South Corporation’s commissioner at present, might be the pick,” the official said.
Under the unified MCD, the city will have a maximum of 250 wards. “Upon the completion of each census after the establishment of the corporation, the number of seats shall be on the basis of the population of Delhi as ascertained in that census and shall be determined by the central government by notification in the official gazette,” the MHA notification read.
Bulldozers in Jahangirpuri
The North MCD plans an anti-encroachment drive on Wednesday and Thursday in Jahangirpuri, where clashes broke out on Saturday