Urban Development Management - 1

Urban Development
Management: Evolution of ULB,

Structure, Function and
Management
M. Tech III Semester
History of ULB’s
Local Self - Government in India
•
Municipal Bodies have a long history in India. The first such body, called a
"Municipal Corporation" was set up in the former presidency town of Madras in
the year 1688, and was followed by the establishment of similar Corporations in
Bombay and Calcutta in the year 1726.
•
In Bengal, an Act, providing for the formation of a municipal committee on the
application of two-third of the population of a town was passed in 1842. Similar
measures were enacted in 1850 and 1856 in many other provinces of the
country to popularise the establishment of local bodies.
•
The Royal Army Sanitary Commission, in its Repot in 1863, invited pointed
attention to the unhealthy conditions of the towns. The Punjab Government took
prompt action in pursuance of these recommendations. And, under the Punjab
Municipal Act XV of 1867, the voluntary provision for the constitution of
municipalities was dropped and the Provincial Government assumed the
necessary powers to set up committees to look after the water-supply, lighting,
sanitation, etc. of the towns in the State.
•
The said Act further permitted the election of the Provincial Government.
These measures proved to be useful in improving the sanitary conditions in the
towns.
•
The real progress in the field of local self-government however, began under
the Viceroyalty of Lord Mayo (1869-72). He planned to entrust the local
objects to local revenues and local interests. Lord Mayo’s Resolution of
provincial finances, encouraged the general application of the principle of
election to the local bodies was another step in the development of local self-
government in India.
•
The review of the local self-Governement done by the Royal Commission of
the Decentralization in 1907-09 did not embody any progressive municipal
policy. The introduction of communal electorates under the Government of
India Act, 1909, proved to be a great impediment to the growth and
development of municipal administration.
•
In their present form of structure, the Municipal Bodies owe their existence to
what is known as the Lord Ripon's Resolution on Local Self-Government
adopted on 18th May, 1882. Ripon has been rightly called as the father of
Local Self-Government in India.
Lord Ripon’s Self Government Act
•
Lord Ripon is known to have granted the Indians first taste of freedom by
introducing the Local Self Government in 1882. His scheme of local self
government developed the Municipal institutions which had been growing up
in the country ever since India was occupied by the British Crown. He led a
series of enactments in which larger powers of the Local self government were
given to the rural and urban bodies and the elective people received some
wider rights.
•
This was not enacted by any act, it was a resolution that was passed in 1882.
•
Lord Ripon, in 1882 issued a comprehensive resolution, recommending the
removal of all the existing defects in the local bodies and also making them
the instruments of political education. Thus the local self-government as a
conscious movement, began with Lord Ripon who is described the “Father of
Local Self-Government in India”.
•
The state system, after the advent of the British emerged as a highly
centralised set up. Local institutions during the British period were more a
creation of the government from whom they derived their autonomy rather
than a process of spontaneous growth.
•
No attempts were made to build up the system on indigenous foundations,
although a good deal of indigenous taxation was retained in local finance.
•
But from the structure and procedure of earlier local institutions, almost
nothing has been incorporated into modern local government. The form
adopted during the British rule was an admixture of the British and
continental patterns.
The history of local self-government in India under the British rule can be
conveniently divided into four phases.
•
The first phase may be assumed to have ended in 1882, when Lord Ripon
issued his well-known resolution on local self-government.
•
The second phase covers developments from 1882 to 1919, when more
powers were transferred from the centre to the provinces, and the
recommendations of the Decentralisation Commission of 1907, besides
discussing other matters, suggested some changes in local self-government.
•
The third phase extended up to 1935, during which the Indian Taxation Enquiry
Committee (1925) considered the problems of local taxation, along with
central and provincial finances. The Simon Commission of 1930, reversed the
process of decentralisation, by recommending strict control of the state over
local bodies.
•
The fourth phase covers developments upto 1947. During this phase,
introduction of provincial autonomy in 1937, and coming into power of
congress ministries in many provinces, local bodies, particularly village
panchayats, received a great stimulus and there was democratisation of local
bodies.
•
The panchayat had never been the priority of the British rulers. The rulers
were interested in the creation of ‘controlled’ local bodies, which could help
them in their trading interests by collecting taxes for them

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