The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved the Amendment Bill to unify all three Municipal Corporations in Delhi.
The Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022, which provides for a unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi, will be tabled in Parliament soon.
This comes a few days after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) approached the Supreme Court seeking direction to the State Election Commission (SEC) to conduct the MCD polls and accused the BJP-led Central Government of delaying local body elections.
The erstwhile Delhi Municipal Corporation was trifurcated into three Municipal Corporations: South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) in 2011 vide the Delhi Municipal Corporation Amendment Act, 1911 (Delhi Act, 12 Of 2011).
"The trifurcation of the corporation was uneven in terms of the territorial divisions and revenue-generating potential of each corporation. As a result, there was a huge gap in the resources available to the three corporations, vis-a-vis their obligations.
The gap has widened over a period of time, increasing the financial difficulties of the three Municipal Corporations, leaving them incapacitated to make timely payment of salaries and retirement benefits to their employees and thereby creating serious impediments in maintaining civic services in Delhi," said a Union Minister justifying the Cabinet decision.
The SEC had deferred the announcement of the election schedule for the civic bodies, which it was earlier slated to announce on March 9.
Since the deferment, a bitter war of words has ensued between the
BJP, which is ruling the three municipal corporations, and the AAP, the ruling party in the Delhi Government.
The Union Cabinet's nod to the Bill to merge the three municipal corporations in Delhi is now likely to escalate the ongoing political tussle between BJP and AAP ahead of the civic polls. All three corporations in the city are currently ruled by the BJP, which has been controlling the civic bodies since the trifurcation of the erstwhile unified MCD.