With the Telangana cabinet's recent approval to merge 27 urban local bodies (ULBs) surrounding the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) with it, Hyderabad is set to become the largest metropolis in India, surpassing Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai and many other major urban areas in the country.
After the merger of the 20 municipalities and seven municipal corporations, the size of the GHMC area is set to grow from the present 635 sq.km to 2,053 sq.km. The government has emphasised that the merger was necessary to ensure uniform growth across the city and suburban areas. While announcing the merger on November 25, the IT and Industries Minister, D. Sridhar Babu, said the relevant laws would be amended soon to enable the merger.
A memo issued by Chief Secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao stated that development patterns in areas within and outside the GHMC area have become uneven due to fragmented administrative jurisdictions and regulatory disparities. The memo stated that rapid urbanisation around the city has created numerous peri-urban pockets that face gaps in infrastructure, planning and civic amenities when compared to the core GHMC region.
Experts held that this step could ensure some uniformity, but not any serious reforms in the city’s governance. “This measure is in line with current urbanisation trends. However, the governance standards may not be improved as local governance is not being strengthened, and MLAs still want to have full control. The budgetary allocations from the state government are also quite weak,” said S. Padmanabha Reddy, convener of Forum for Good Governance.
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Weighing in on the topic, another expert, Donthi Narsimha Reddy, said, “Even if Hyderabad becomes the largest metropolis, its budget won’t increase dramatically. If you compare Mumbai Corporation’s Rs 80,000 crore budget with Rs 5,000 crore of GHMC, you would understand how weak the Hyderabad urban body is. It is important to develop GHMC into a governing body to ensure development of the city,” he explained.
However, the realtors are expecting a boost for the sector with the merger. Talking to the media, K. Indra Sena Reddy, president of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (CREDAI) Telangana, said Hyderabad is expanding rapidly, and integration of peripheral municipalities and corporations presents a major opportunity to ensure uniform infrastructure standards, efficient service delivery and coordinated planning across the entire metropolitan area.
