Types of Urban Bodies in India There are several types of urban bodies in India such as Municipal Corporation, Municipality, Notified Area Committee, Town Area Committee, Special Purpose Agency, Township, Port Trust, Cantonment Board etc. Brief detail about them is given below: Contents [hide] Municipal Corporation Municipality Notified Area Committee Town Area Committee Cantonment Board Township Port Trust Special Purpose Agency Municipal Corporation Municipal Corporations are created to look after the administrative needs of large cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, etc. The respective state legislatures can establish the municipal corporations by passing an act. In case of union territories, they can be established by the acts of Indian Parliament. There may be a one single act for all municipal corporations in the state or separate act for each municipal corporation. There are three authorities under a municipal corporation viz. the council, the standing committees and the commissioner. The council acts as the deliberative and legislative wing of the corporation. The council is made up of councillors who are directly elected by the people. The head of the council is called mayor. Mayor is assisted by a deputy mayor. Mayor presides over the council meetings. As the council is too large in size, standing committees are created to facilitate the working of the council. The standing committees take decisions with respect their field like public works, education, health, taxation, etc. The municipal commissioner is the chief executive authority of the corporation and he implements the decisions taken by the council and its standing committees. State government appoints the municipal commissioner. Generally IAS officers are appointed as the municipal commissioner. Municipality The municipalities are created for the administration of smaller cities and towns. They are set up by the acts of the respective state governments. In case of union territories, they are set up by acts of Parliament of India. Municipalities are called with different names like municipal council, municipal committee, municipal board, borough municipality, city municipality, etc. A municipality has three authorities viz. the council, the standing committees and the chief executive officer. The council acts as the deliberative and legislative wing of the municipality. The council is made up of councillors who are directly elected by the people. The head of the council is called president or chairman. He is assisted by a vice-president or vice-chairman. President/Chairman presides over the meetings of the council. The standing committees deal with different fields like public works, education, health, etc. They facilitate the working of the council. The chief executive officer looks after the day-to-day responsibilities of administration of the municipality. He is appointed by the state government. Notified Area Committee A notified area committee is established to take care of administration of an area which is either a fast developing town from industrialisation or a town not yet developed to fulfil all the conditions to create a municipality but is considered as important by the state government. A notified area committee is created by a notification in the government gazette. The notification also mentions the provisions of the State Municipal Act that are applied to the notified area committee. The state may also entrust to it powers under any other act. The powers of a notified area committee are equal to a municipality. Unlike the municipality, a notified area committee is an entirely nominated body. State government nominates all members including the chairman to a notified area committee. Thus, a notified area committee is neither an elected body nor a statutory body. Town Area Committee A town area committee is created for the administration of a small town. It is like a semi-municipal authority. Limited number of civic functions such as roads, street lighting, and drainage are entrusted to it. It is established by a separate act passed by a state legislature. The act mentions the composition, functions, and other matters related to the town area committee. It may be a wholly nominated body by a state government or a wholly elected body or partly nominated and partly elected. Cantonment Board They are created for municipal administration for civilian population in the cantonment areas. Unlike other urban local bodies, a cantonment board is created as well as administered by union government. The provisions of the Cantonments Act of 2006, a central government act, are applicable to a cantonment board. A cantonment board functions under the administrative control of union defence ministry. Now, there are 62 cantonment boards in the country. The members of a cantonment board are partly elected and partly nominated. While the elected members hold the office for a term of 5 years, the nominated members continue as long as they hold the office. The military officer who is commanding the station is the ex-officiopresident of the board and he presides over its meetings.The board’s vice-president is elected by the elected members from amongst themselves and he holds the position for five years. The functions of a cantonment board are similar to those of a municipality. Their functions are categorised as obligatory and discretionary functions.Its executive officer is appointed by the President of India. He is responsible for implementation of the decisions of the board and its committees. The source of income of the boards includes both, tax and non-tax revenue. Township Townships are created by the large public sector enterprises for its staff and workers near to the plant with all civic amenities. A town administrator is appointed by the enterprise to take care of the administration of the township. He is assisted by some engineers and some other staff. The township form of urban government has no elected members. Port Trust The port trusts are created in the port areas like Kolkata, Chennai,Mumbai, etc. The objective in their creation is to manage and protect the ports; and to provide civic amenities. A port trust is set up by an Act of Parliament. Its members include both elected and nominated. Its chairman is an official. Its civic functions are almost similar to those of a municipality. Special Purpose Agency Along with the above seven types of urban bodies, the states can create certain agencies to look after specific functions that ‘legitimately’ belong to any of the above local urban governments. These agencies are function-based and not area-based like the above seven bodies. They are known as ‘special purpose’ or ‘single purpose’ agencies or ‘functional local bodies’. They are created as statutory bodies by an act of state legislature or as departments by an executive resolution. They work as autonomous bodies dealing with their allotted functions independently of the local urban governments. They are not subordinated to any local urban governance bodies. Examples of such bodies are: Town improvement trusts. Water supply and sewerage boards. Pollution control boards. Electricity supply boards. Urban development authorities. City transport boards. Housing boards.
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LEGISLATIVE REFORMS:

1) State funding of Political parties -
To stop criminalisation of politics,state funding to political parties has been recommended by Khandwalla ( 1999 ) can be in the form of maintenance subsidy and electioneering expenditure to cover costs of grass root works,training of cadre,media costs,costs of organising meetings and rallies. These funds can be routed through the Election Commission who can keep a close check on them by virtue of its job. These political parties should maintain accounts,get them audited, and file the audited accounts with the Election Commissions so that they are open to public scrutiny.

2) Representative legislature
- Khandwalla recommends for Representative legislature instead of the normal territorial legislature prevalent as it does not represent all the sections of society. If a candidate secures 50.5 % votes and he has the majority to first past the post but then what about the rest 49.5 %,what about their interests and needs? What is the guarantee that they would be represented by the leader and not spite them instead and the same applies at the centre for the ruling government where the same first past the post system prevails. 

Khandwalla recommends that in coalition governments there should be a system of rotation of Prime Minister among candidates of all the allied parties so that interests of all sections and areas are well represented and taken care of.

Khandwalla representation is also a good step in today's era of coalition governments where each constituency will elect not one but more than one legislator depending on the size of the constituency So each party can field more than one contestant from their party for that constituency and the winning candidates will reflect the preference of the voters as the top three vote scorers in a constituency will go to the legislature instead one which will be a more fairer representation of the people.

3) Stable Coalitions:
Remove grey areas of the anti defection act with stronger legal actions and the coalition should work on the basis of consensus and mutual consultation. There should be incentives for well performance of politicians and disincentives for those not performing their duties to the required level.

4) Responsive Parliamentary Procedures -
The National Commission headed by former Chief Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah in 2000 for the review of the working of the Constitution stated that there is a need for a better conduct by the politicians and for their better standards of debate and discussion in the parliament and for this there needs to be an aware opposition to thwart the ill will of government and make it more responsive.

5) Strong Committee System -
The National Commission also stated the need to strengthen the Committee of Parliament given their instrumental and enormous importance of these committees towards budget bills and other matters passing. Recommendations of the Commission can be viewed in totality here :http://lawmin.nic.in/ncrwc/finalreport.htm

POLITICAL EXECUTIVE REFORMS:

1) Educational qualifications to be set for legislators -
After election they are to be trained regarding their duties and responsibilities, entitlements and rights,constitutional provisions,working of the government and legislative processes,legal procedures,important political,social and economic institutions and agencies and ICT competence. A National Training Academy can be set up for this purpose to help inculcate professionalism in them before assuming their duties totally.

2) Norms of Elected Candidates -
They must have a standard code of conduct and open themselves to public scrutiny through parliamentary Ombudsman and apart from this, there should be a provision to totally bar candidates having ongoing cases going on them whether acquitted or at trial stage to contest elections.

3) Training and performance review of legislators

JUDICIAL REFORMS:

1) Speedy and time bound disposal of cases -
Appoint enough judges for doing so. Proper software should be devised and implemented for segregating waste cases and a proper grievance redressal mechanism in private and public institutions so that employer - employee disputes should be settled effectively at that level only and only major cases come to the court.

The National Commission in 2000 recommended that each High Court should lay down time limits for time bound clearance of arrears in the courts under its jurisdiction and lay down annual targets and district wise performance targets which should be monitored and evaluated regularly. The Commission also advocated for the Supreme Court and high courts to not delay judgements more than 90 days after conclusion of cases.

The 7th Law Commission under Justice Rao suggested that the Gram Nyayalays could process 60-70 % of rural litigation leaving the regular courts and sub divisions time to devote to complex criminal and civil matters. Apart from this the rural people's interaction will increase more and they would be happy with a fast,fair and flexible machinery of justice that is also inexpensive.

Another option is the Conciliation Courts method where along with a participatory model where a professional judge interacts with two lay judges and evolves a reasonable resolution and in such cases once a matter is decided there would not be any appeal against it and only a revision petition will be permissible on questions of law to the District Courts.

2) User - Friendly Courts -
Contempt of Court should be codified and not used arbitrarily by the Judges so that people find courts more approachable.

3) Judicial Reforms And Accountability -
The Judiciary still is relatively out of the reach of the public and that leads to non accountability and the scare of Contempt of court halts any process to question them. Therefore, there is a need to set up a body like a Judicial Council to look into cases and deviant behaviours of judges. It will comprise judges and will take actions against a defiant judge. It can reprimand a judge and recommend voluntary retirement,or resignation and withdraw cases dealt by such judges. Removal of judge is done through impeachment in Parliament, so this body can send the records of the judge to the parliament and recommend an impeachment.