Town Area Committee, Township, Port Trust & Special Purpose Agency
Q. Which of the following are urban local government bodies?
1) Pollution Control Boards.
2) Township.
3) Port Trust.
4) Town Area Committee.
5) Urban Development Authorities.- Published on 10 Mar 17a. 1, 2, 4 and 5
b. 2, 3 and 4
c. 2 and 3 only
d. All of the above
ANSWER: All of the above
The following eight types of urban local bodies are created in India for the administration of urban areas -
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.
Special purpose Agency -
- First seven are area based.
- The states have set up Special Purpose Agencies to undertake designated activities or specific functions.
- These functions actually belong to the domain of municipal corporations or municipalities or other local urban governments.
- Thus these are function-based agencies and are known as ‘single purpose’, ‘uni-purpose’ or ‘special purpose’ agencies or ‘functional local bodies’.
Some of them are -
1. Town improvement trusts.
2. Urban development authorities.
3. Water supply and sewerage boards.
4. Housing boards.
5. Pollution control boards.
6. Electricity supply boards.
7. City transport boards.
8. BEST buses, PMPML buses etc.
- These are statutory bodies or they can be formed as departments by an executive resolution.
- They function as autonomously, performing functions allotted to them independently of the local urban governments.
- Hence they are not subordinate agencies of the local municipal bodies.
Town Area Committee -
- Town area committee is set up for administering a small town.
- It is a semi-municipal authority.
- It is entrusted with a limited number of civic functions like drainage, roads, street lighting etc.
- They are created by a separate act of a state legislature.
- The act governs its composition, functions and other matters.
- They may be wholly or partly elected or wholly or partly nominated by the state government.
Township -
- They are established by large public enterprises to provide civic amenities to its staff and workers.
- The staff is generally living in the housing colonies built near the plant.
- The enterprise appoints a town administrator who looks after the administration of the township.
- The town administrator is assisted by some engineers and other technical and non-technical staff.
- It doesn’t have elected members.
- It can be thought of as an extension of the bureaucratic structure of the enterprises.
Port Trust -
- They are established in port areas like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai etc.
They are to -
1. to manage and protect the ports; and
2. to provide civic amenities.
- A port trust is created by an Act of Parliament and has both elected and nominated members.
- Its chairman is an official and its civic functions are similar to those of a municipality.
