Breaking apart GHMC will shrink consolidated tax base, dilute skilled capability, weaken borrowing energy, and deepen fiscal dependence on the state
Printed Date – 11 February 2026, 08:47 PM
By Pendyala Mangala Devi
The proposal to trifurcate the Better Hyderabad Municipal Company (GHMC) is being marketed as administrative effectivity. We’re advised it’ll guarantee “higher service supply,” “manageable measurement,” and “nearer administration.” These phrases sound fashionable. They’re politically enticing. However they’re structurally hole. Beneath them lies a misunderstanding of how cities perform, a selective studying of constitutional design, and a willingness to weaken democratic establishments as a substitute of repairing them.
Jawaharlal Nehru warned that “Democracy shouldn’t be merely a type of authorities; it’s a lifestyle.”
In cities, democracy shouldn’t be summary. It’s drainage that works, waste that’s collected, roads which are maintained, and water that reaches households. City governance is the place democracy turns into seen. When the establishment governing a metropolis is weakened, democracy erodes in follow.
A Metropolis Is an Built-in Organism, Not an Administrative Map
On the coronary heart of the trifurcation argument lies a elementary error: treating a metropolis as an administrative map quite than as an built-in system. A metropolis shouldn’t be a set of wards stitched collectively by notification. It’s a dense, interdependent organism — labour markets linked to move corridors, drainage networks tied to topography, housing patterns intertwined with employment zones.
Author and concrete activist Jane Jacobs described cities as “issues in organized complexity”. Organised complexity calls for institutional integration, not fragmentation.
Plato warned that when inside unity collapses, governance descends into dysfunction (The Republic, E-book IV). Fragmentation weakens the coherence that makes metropolitan governance doable.
Constitutional Structure of City Self-Authorities
The constitutional dimension makes the difficulty extra critical. The 74th Constitutional Modification inserted Half IX-A (Articles 243P–243ZG) into the Structure, granting constitutional standing to municipalities and municipal firms. These are usually not administrative conveniences of State governments. They’re establishments of self-government, elected by the folks, with capabilities explicitly listed within the Twelfth Schedule — together with city planning, regulation of land use, water provide, sanitation, public well being, slum enchancment, and concrete forestry.
The 73rd and 74th Amendments have been enacted exactly to deepen democracy by empowering villages and cities as constitutional models of governance.
The False District Analogy: Administrative Divisions vs Constitutional Governments
Some of the widespread justifications for trifurcation is deceptively easy: States create new districts for administrative comfort. Why not create new municipal firms? As a result of districts are usually not constitutional governments.
Actual reform strengthens establishments; it doesn’t divide them. Delhi’s expertise exhibits how fragmentation undermines monetary stability, accountability, and metropolitan governance
Districts are administrative divisions created below state legal guidelines and government authority. A District Collector is appointed by the State authorities. A district doesn’t derive authority from Half IX or Half IX-A of the Structure. It’s an arm of the chief.
Village panchayats derive authority below Half IX (Articles 243–243O). Municipalities and Municipal Firms derive authority below Half IX-A. Their tenure, elections, composition, and capabilities are constitutionally protected. The Supreme Court docket in Kishansing Tomar v. Municipal Company of Ahmedabad (2006) underscored that municipalities are constitutional establishments whose democratic continuity can’t be casually interrupted.
Equating the creation of districts with the fragmentation of municipal firms is, subsequently, constitutionally inaccurate. Districts are administrative subdivisions. Municipal firms are democratic governments. Treating a metropolis like a district shouldn’t be reform. It’s constitutional confusion.
What the Proof Says: Ahluwalia Committee’s Warning
The Excessive-Powered Professional Committee (HPEC) on City Infrastructure and Providers (2011), chaired by Dr Isher Choose Ahluwalia, said unequivocally: “The weak point of India’s cities lies not of their measurement, however within the inadequacy of their governance constructions and funds.” (HPEC Report, 2011)
The Committee warned in opposition to fragmentation and overlapping jurisdictions. Breaking GHMC into smaller firms would shrink consolidated tax bases, dilute skilled cadres, cut back borrowing capability, and enhance fiscal dependence on the state. That’s not decentralisation; it’s institutional weakening.
French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville noticed, “Native establishments are to liberty what main faculties are to science.” Hole out native establishments, and liberty itself turns into fragile.
Delhi: A Actual-World Experiment in Fragmentation
If one wants a sensible illustration of fragmentation’s penalties, Delhi gives it. In 2012, the Municipal Company of Delhi was trifurcated into North, South, and East firms below the Delhi Municipal Company (Modification) Act, 2011. The official reasoning echoed right this moment’s language: higher administration, higher effectivity. The result was a structural imbalance.
South Delhi inherited prosperous industrial areas and stronger property tax bases. North and East Delhi inherited bigger populations with weaker income sources. The outcome was continual fiscal misery. Salaries of municipal employees and sanitation employees have been delayed repeatedly. Rubbish crises turned routine. Service supply faltered not as a result of Delhi was too giant, however as a result of it had been divided with out fiscal symmetry.
Administrative coordination additionally deteriorated. Delhi already had a number of companies — the Delhi Improvement Authority, NDMC, Cantonment Board, Public Works Division, and central authorities. Trifurcation multiplied institutional fragmentation. Metropolitan issues required metropolitan coordination, however governance turned fractured throughout competing municipal entities.
The HPEC had warned that “a number of companies with overlapping obligations have led to weak accountability and poor service outcomes in metropolitan governance.” Delhi illustrated this with precision. Political fragmentation compounded the dysfunction. Totally different firms have been managed by totally different events whereas the State authorities was led by one other. Accountability dissolved into blame-shifting. Residents have been caught between establishments, pointing fingers at each other.
Max Weber warned that paperwork with out readability of authority degenerates into dysfunction. Delhi’s municipal fragmentation demonstrated that lesson.
In 2022, Parliament enacted the Delhi Municipal Company (Modification) Act, reunifying the three firms right into a single entity. The said causes included monetary instability, duplication of administrative constructions, and governance inefficiency. Reunification was not ideological. It was corrective. It was recognition that fragmentation had failed to provide structural enchancment. To fragment after which reunify shouldn’t be reform. It’s governance by expensive experimentation.
Metropolitan Governance Constitutionally Anticipated
The Structure anticipated metropolitan complexity way back. Article 243ZE mandates Metropolitan Planning Committees for coordinated planning throughout municipalities. The HPEC strengthened the necessity for unified metropolitan governance for transport, housing, and environmental administration.
American statesman and political theorist James Madison warned that poorly designed establishments breed factionalism. In metropolitan governance, factionalism interprets into stalled infrastructure, institutional rivalry, and public inconvenience.
City governance additionally has a political economic system. Giant municipal firms possess bargaining energy — monetary, administrative, and political. Fragmentation weakens that leverage. The HPEC cautioned that city native our bodies are sometimes assigned obligations with out matching authority or funds.
What Actual Reform Really Requires
If the GHMC faces governance challenges, the answer lies in strengthening establishments: unified authority, strong property taxation, predictable fiscal transfers, skilled city cadres, and metropolitan-scale planning.
The HPEC was clear: “India wants empowered metropolis governments with sufficient monetary sources, skilled capability, and political accountability.” None of this requires trifurcation.
Reform Strengthens. Retreat Divides
Delhi’s expertise shouldn’t be theoretical. It’s latest historical past. It exhibits what occurs when fragmentation is mistaken for reform. Villages, municipalities, and municipal firms are constitutional governments. Districts are administrative divisions. Complicated the 2 shouldn’t be innovation. It’s institutional misreading.
Reform that weakens democratic establishments shouldn’t be reform. It’s a retreat. And retreat in city governance all the time extracts its value from residents, not from those that design the maps.
