All the three corporations to be governed by the GHMC Act, 1955

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955, will be the guiding light for the governance of all the new municipal corporations carved out of the GHMC by way of a government order on Wednesday, unlike other municipalities/corporations which are governed by the Telangana Municipalities Act, 2019.

The three civic bodies, namely GHMC, Cyberabad Municipal Corporation and Malkajgiri Municipal Corporation, will be governed by the GHMC Act, which had undergone several amendments that received the stamp of approval during the winter session of the Telangana Legislative Assembly in January first week.

One of the amendments empowers the State government to create any number of corporations within the Core Urban Region (CURE), presently defined as constituting all the areas within the Outer Ring Road.

The amendments have changed the definition of the term ‘City’ to mean CURE, and the definition of the term ‘Corporation’ to mean all the corporations within the CURE as notified by the government.

The power of the government to alter the limits of the city from time to time in consultation with the corporation, as enunciated in the Section 3(3), has been substituted with a clause that empowers the State Legislature to modify, add, alter, or remove any area within the city, without any consultation with the corporations.

The government has also arrogated to itself the powers to decide issues among the corporations, and by order, ‘to do anything which appears to them necessary for the purpose of removing the difficulty’ if any such difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of the Act.