New Delhi: Post unification of the three municipal corporations of Delhi — east, north, and south municipal corporations — Bhupinder Bhalla has been appointed as the new chairman of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation, as per an official order issued on Friday, reported news agency PTI.
Bhalla, a 1990-batch Indian Administrative Services officer, is currently serving as the additional chief secretary of Delhi. He will succeed Dharmendra, a 1989-batch IAS officer, as the new chairman of the civic body.
The Union government had already appointed IAS officers Ashwani Kumar and Gyanesh Bharti as the new civic body’s special officer and commissioner respectively. A 1992-batch IAS officer. Kumar had served as the chief secretary of Puducherry and was recently transferred to the national capital.
He had also worked as the principal secretary of the Public Works Department in the Delhi Government in 2017.
While Bharti is a 1998-batch IAS officer also of the AGMUT cadre and had served as the commissioner of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation prior to this assignment, and he was the senior-most among Delhi's erstwhile three municipal commissioners.
On May 22, the unified municipal corporation of Delhi formally came into existence. The three municipal corporation — north, east, and south municipal corporation — were trifurcated in 2012 during Sheila Diskhit’s tenure as the Chief Minister
The legislation for the unification of the three municipal corporations — the Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022 — was approved by the Lok Sabha on March 30 and in Rajya Sabha on April 5. President Ram Nath Kovind had given his assent on April 18.