The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday issued a notification declaring IAS officer Ashwani Kumar of AGMUT cadre, 1992 batch, as the first Special Officer of the unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), that will come into force from Sunday.
The present South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, a 1998-batch AGMUT IAS officer, has been appointed as the Commissioner of the unified MCD.
According to an order by the MHA, the appointments will come into effect from May 22, the day the three civic bodies are unified. Ashwani Kumar, who was the Chief secretary of Puducherry, had recently been transferred to Delhi by the Central Government and was awaiting a positing.
Kumar had earlier served as the Principal Secretary to the Public Works Department in the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, before being transferred to Puducherry.
The present SDMC Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, is the senior most among the three Municipal Commissioners of Delhi.
Bharti, who hails from Bihar, was posted as Joint Secretary and Cabinet Secretary with the Government of India before being repatriated to his parent cadre in 2019. According to sources in the MCD, Special Officer Kumar will take over the duties of the elected Councilors of the MCD, till the elections take place again. He is likely to head the advisory committee while Bharti will act as head of the executive wing of the MCD. Kumar will have a final say in the functioning and working of the MCD.
Kumar's appointment is considered significant as he will play a vital role in the functioning of the unified municipal corporation, months before the civic elections.
Sources said that after the appointment of the Special Officer and the new Commissioner the exercise to reshuffle and reorganise the municipal staff will begin.
The municipal elections, however, will have to wait for a comprehensive delimitation exercise since the new law provides for a maximum of 250 municipal wards — fewer than the current 272.
Earlier, in a notification, the MHA said that the unified MCD will come into effect from May 22 as the terms of the three municipal bodies in the Capital are coming to an end.
The term of the SDMC ended on Wednesday, while the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) completed its tenure on Thursday and the East DMC (EDMC) will complete its term on May 22.
The civic bodies were trifurcated in January 2012, after which the SDMC, NMC and EDMC were created. The municipal corporations provided services to around 97 per cent of Delhi’s population across 272 municipal wards.
There were 12 administrative zones under the MCD out of which SDMC got four (Centre, South, West, and Najafgarh); NMC got (Rohini, Civil Lines, Karol Bagh, City Sadar Paharganj, Keshavpuram, and Narela); and the EDMC (Shahdara North and Shahdara South).