Delhi Municipal Corporation Unifies: Election body was scheduled to announce civic poll dates on March 8.
Delhi's three civic bodies will become a single entity as Union Home Ministry issued a notification for the unification of the three municipal corporations that were trifurcated in 2012.
North Delhi Municipal Corporation and South Delhi Municipal Corporation which each comprise of 104 municipal wards and East Delhi Municipal Corporation that contains 64 wards will be treated as one civic body of Delhi- Municipal Corporation of Delhi- from May 22.
"As per the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022, the central government will appoint a special officer to run the new unified civic body until the first meeting of the corporation is held," a senior Home Ministry official told NDTV.
South Delhi Municipal corporation's term ended today while the terms of North Delhi and East Delhi corporations will be completed on May 19 and May 22, respectively, he added.
"There was lot of confusion regarding implementation of various schemes owing to the presence of three separate bodies," the official said.
A single well-equipped entity would be able to manage the national capital better and will also reduce administrative expenses, he asserted.
"It would be easier to allot funds now for flagship schemes and programmes in Delhi," another officer said.
The State Election Commission was scheduled to announce civic poll dates on March 8, but it deferred the announcement after being notified by the Centre regarding the unification of the three municipal bodies.
The move to merge the three civic bodies has triggered a political blame game between the Centre and Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party with the latter calling the entire process a "tactic to delay elections" to the civic bodies.
Legislation to unify the three civic bodies was approved by 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.
The Act reduces the number of wards to 250 from the existing 272, which means that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi will have to undergo a delimitation exercise before elections. The Centre will form a delimitation commission to carry out the demarcation of wards.