The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Wednesday issued a notification for the unification of three municipal corporations of Delhi into a single entity. The South, North, and East MCD will be treated as one Municipal Corporation of Delhi from May 22.
"Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022 will come into force on May 22. With the move, all the 3 municipal corporations of Delhi- North DMC, South DMC and East DMC will merge into one entity," read the MHA notification.
The term of the South DMC ended today, while the other two civic bodies — North DMC and East DMC will be completing their terms on May 19 and May 22, respectively.
The legislation to unify the three civic bodies was approved by the Lok Sabha on March 30 and by the Rajya Sabha on April 5. The legislation had become an Act after President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent to the bill on April 18.
With this merger, the number of municipal wards in Delhi will reduce to 250 from 272.
Elections for three MCDs were scheduled this month but were deferred on March 9 following the Centre's communication about the merger.
This move of merging the three civic bodies had triggered a political blame game with Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) terming it a “tactic to delay the elections".
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said that the BJP wanted to unify civic bodies only to delay the elections.
"In the guise of the bill, the BJP is killing democracy by stopping MCD elections. According to me, this is not the MCD reform bill, this is the 'Stop MCD Elections' Bill," Sisodia had said in Delhi Assembly.
Meanwhile, Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta had said that the unification of three municipal corporations into a single entity will prove to be a milestone in the development journey of the city.
In 2012, the then Chief Minister Sheila Dixit had trifurcated the MCD into three separate municipal bodies for better administration of the civic body.
