Town Area Committee

Before understanding the town area committee, we need to understand what is known as an urban local body and how it came into existence. The concept of urban local self-government came into existence in the colonial era. It was lord Rippon’s concept that urban local self-government came into being in 1882.He is thus regarded as the magna carta of local self-government. An Urban area is defined as the one that is declared by a statutory establishment. In India we have a hierarchy of government at national, state, regional and then at local level. The urban local government in India, if simply put, is the rule by the elected representatives of the specific urban area. In India there are eight different types of urban local bodies they are as follows -:

1. Municipal corporation

2. Municipality

3. Notified area committee

4. Town area committee

5. Cantonment board

6. Township

7. Port trust 

8. Special purpose agency

By the 74th constitution amendment act of 1992 constitutionalist the system of urban government. The term local government is the subject present in the state list of the 7th schedule of the constitution.

Urban local government deals with three ministries. These are as follows -:

1. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affair

2. Ministry of Home Affairs 

3. Ministry of Defence 

Town and Town area 

The word town is derived from an old English word which means a walled or fenced place such as a village, farm etc but in modern context towns are populated areas with defined and fixed boundaries and having a local government. Towns are bigger than villages but are smaller than cities. City is an important town.

Town area comes under the broader definition of what is known as an urban area. From a census point of view urban areas contain statutory towns, census towns and outgrowth.

1.Statutory towns- Places which are defined as urban by statute (law) like municipality, notified area committee, town area committee, town panchayat etc are known as statutory towns.

2. Census towns- with a population of 5,000 minimum and at least 75% of the main working population involved in non-agricultural work (male population) and Population density of at least 400 per sq. km.

3. Outgrowths -are villages or part of villages that are contiguous with statutory town

Town Area Committee

It is semi municipal body and does the following work civic functions: –

• Drainage

• Street lighting

• Roads and other functions like conservation of wildlife and environment.

Formation

Town area committee is formed by an act passed by the state legislature. This act governs various characteristics, functions and composition of the community

Composition

In terms of members of the town area committee it depends on state they can be wholly or partly elected or wholly or partly nominated as the case maybe

Revenue

There are five major sources of income of an Urban local body. They are as follows: –

1.Tax revenue- Revenue from taxes like property, entertainment, market, toll on bridges, professional tax, lighting tax, tax on advertisement, water tax, tax on animals. Coming on cess like – Library cess, education cess, beggary cess.

Property tax though is one of the major contributing factors in terms of revenue from tax.

2. Non- tax revenue-This includes profits, dividends, interest, fees, fines, rents on municipal property also the payment for using public utilities such as water charges, sanitation charges, sewerage charges and others.

3. Grants – They are basically funds allocated by the central government, state government for development programmes in the municipal area (town) be it infrastructure projects connecting the town with a major city or other infrastructure schemes, Urban initiative reforms and so on.

4. Devolution- The state finance commission gives it recommendations to the state on its allocation of funds. Devolution is the funds which are transferred from the state government on finance commission recommendations.

5. Loans –In order to cater the needs of the town it can raise loans from state governments or financial institutions like banks etc to meet their expenditure but the town area committee can borrow from the financial institutions or other bodies only after the approval from the state government.

Personnel working in the town area committee 

1. Separate Personnel system-

In this system the power of appointment is with local bodies. It is the most common system.Personnel under this system cannot be transferred.

2.Unified personnel system-

 In this system the power of appointment and control is with the state government and the personnel are transferable in different states. It is prevalent in Rajasthan, Tamil nadu,Andhra Pradesh,Madhya pradesh etc.

3. Integrated Personnel system –

 In this system there is an integration of state and local government for the appointment wherein the personnel are transferrable not only among local Bodies by states and its departments.it is prevalent in Odisha, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana.

Conclusion

Town area committee is an urban local body which is playing a crucial role in the administration of small towns. The proper working of urban local bodies is crucial for the area in terms of its basic services like infrastructure, lightning, roads etc.