Cabinet Approves Merging Of Delhi Municipal Corporations, Bill To Be Presented In This Session

The central government will present the bill in Parliament during the ongoing Budget session 2022 .

AAP leaders and supporters protest against BJP for postponing the Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCD) elections lead by AAP Delhi President Gopal Rai at DDU Marg, on March 14, 2022 in New Delhi. (Getty Images)

New Delhi: The Union cabinet held a meeting on Tuesday and gave its nod to present a bill in the Parliament for the unification of the three municipal corporations in Delhi.

The Cabinet approved 'The Delhi Municipal Corporation Amendment Act 2022'. The amendment act provides for a unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi by subsuming the existing three corporations.

According to ABP News sources, the central government will present the bill in Parliament during the ongoing Budget session 2022 .

The Centre had on March 9, just ahead of a press conference of the State Election Commission (SEC) to announce the dates of the civic polls due in April, sent a communication to the State Election Commissioner S K Srivastava that it is considering to “reunify” the three civic bodies and hence not to announce the poll schedule, as mentioned in a PTI report. 

If the bill is approved in the Parliament, it will unify the three MCDs — East, North, and South — ahead of the civic body polls due in April. This will help BJP, which has been ruling all three MCDs for the past 15 years to stop a buoyant AAP trying to come into power in the civic bodies.

The Ministry of Home Affairs also cited reasons in a recent press release to unify the 3 MCDs and said that frequent strikes by employees due to non-payment of salary and unequal distribution of assets and liabilities leading to an imbalance of income and expenditures of municipal corporations are the reasons to integrate the three entities in Delhi.

The MHA said the trifurcation of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in 2011 might have resulted in unequal distribution of assets and liabilities coupled with an increase in officers and overhead expenditures leading to inefficiency and imbalance of income and expenditures of corporations.

“Since elections to the MCD are due shortly, it would be prudent that the State Election Commission may be apprised that the Central government, in accordance with provisions contained in Article 239 AA of the Constitution and other provisions connected therewith in the Constitution or in other legal statutes, is contemplating to bring in the aforesaid integration of the three municipal corporations existing in NCT of Delhi”.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had been trifurcated by the Sheila Dikshit government in April 2012.  The Delhi Municipal Act, 1957 was amended by the Parliament in 2012 to trifurcate the unified MCD. 

BJP's demand to merge the three MCDs is not new and was raised in 2014 and 2017 when former union minister Vijay Goel had batted in favour of unification saying it would lead to better functioning. Three municipal corporations – the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), North Delhi Municipal Corporation (North DMC), and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) were created. MCD cumulatively provided services to 97% of Delhi’s population across 272 municipal wards.