Behemoth GHMC may have twelve zones, 60 circles

The number of administrative units are likely to be doubled in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) after the recent expansion, proportionate to the increase in the number of electoral wards.

After merger of the peripheral urban local bodies — seven municipal corporations and 20 municipalities — a ward delimitation exercise was taken up by GHMC together with the Centre for Good Governance, and a draft notification for 300 wards in place of the existing 150 has been published.

The GHMC currently has six zones and 30 circles, each zone headed by a zonal commissioner, and each circle, by a deputy municipal commissioner. Now there will be 12 zones, and 60 circles, a senior official told under the condition of anonymity. Each zone will have five circles.

Voter population was the primary criterion on which the ward/division boundaries have been determined, the official said. Each ward/division would contain about 40,000 voters with an error margin of 10,000. This may render the wards with high population density geographically smaller than the wards with low population density.

Several wards where the population was very high, have been bifurcated now. As a result, Serilingampally and Kukatpally will have higher number of wards, due to the existence of high rise towers accommodating relatively larger population. The number of wards has gone up in several areas within the core city too, owing to population density. Conversely, the newly-merged areas have fewer wards as the population in the peripheral areas is relatively sparse. These changes will be politically significant, especially since the number of wards in old city has been almost doubled.

A special meeting of GHMC council will be convened on December 16, for the members to deliberate upon, make suggestions and raise objections about the ward delimitation.

Already, rumbles of protest have begun among people as well as political circles, and representations have been submitted to the GHMC Commissioner R.V. Karnan protesting the changes.

Residents of the erstwhile Badangpet and Jalpally ULBs have been opposing the possible merger of their localities into Charminar Zone.

“Property tax collection from the existing Charminar Zone is way less, whereas our corporation had earlier topped the Ranga Reddy district in collection of property tax. If we are clubbed with Charminar, our funds will be used for the development of the areas from where collection is low, and the areas we reside in will stand to lose,” says R. Ramakrishna Reddy, a resident of Badangpet, who submitted the representation to the commissioner.