The 74th Constitutional Amendment and what it means for your city government

The Constitution (Seventy-fourth Amendment) Act, 1992, inserted Part IXA into the Constitution. It required States to constitute municipalities and to endow them with powers and responsibilities. The idea was simple: local problems should have local governments, not only distant secretariats. Municipal corporations, municipal councils and nagar panchayats became a recognised third tier.

The Twelfth Schedule lists functions that States may devolve: urban planning, water supply, public health, solid waste, roads and bridges, fire services, slum improvement, and more. Devolution is not automatic. Each State passes its own municipal law and decides how much of that list actually sits with the city. That is why a drain in one State is a municipal job and in another is still a parastatal or Public Works subject.

Most large Indian cities have an elected council and an appointed commissioner or municipal commissioner. The council sets policy and passes the budget. The commissioner runs the administration. Tension between the two is common. Citizens feel it when a councillor promises a work and the engineering department says there is no estimate. Both may be telling a partial truth.

Wards are the basic electoral units. Your councillor is the political face of the ward. Engineers are organised by ward, zone or circle. Matching your complaint to the right ward office is more important than writing to the headquarters. Headquarters will often mark the letter back to the zone anyway, losing a week.

If a function is still with a State department or a board, writing only to the municipal corporation will fail. Water in several metros is run by a jal board. Electricity is almost always a DISCOM. Urban roads may be split among the corporation, a development authority, and the Public Works Department depending on the width of the road or whether it is a State highway through the city.

The Amendment also envisaged ward committees in larger cities so that people closer to the street could be heard. Implementation is patchy. Where ward committees meet, residents’ associations can place items on the agenda. Where they do not, the councillor’s weekly meeting or the zonal grievance day is the practical substitute.

CivicConnect India is built around this split of desks. It tries to route a roads complaint to the municipal email, a power cut to the electricity utility, and a water leak to the water board when those offices are mapped. Understanding the 74th Amendment will not fill a pothole overnight. It will stop you from standing in the wrong queue.