Special Types of Municipal Bodies

NOTIFIED AREAS:

In urban planning, a Notified area is any land area earmarked by legal provision for future development. The term is used in the Hindi belt region of North India.
The term also describes a village or settlement with a population between 10,000 and 20,000. A community of over 20,000 is considered a town under Indian law. 

Each notified area elects a notified area committee for its administration where all members as well as the chairman are nominated by the state government, which function like municipality. There have been various recommendations asking to stop such centralisation in the state govt. hands by setting up these areas when they should actually be under the PRIs.


TOWN AREA COMMITTEE:

It is a semi municipal authority constituted for small towns,and it exists in several states out of which Uttar Pradesh has the largest number. The members may be partly elected and partly nominated by the state govt. or wholly nominated or wholly elected. It is assigned a number of functions like street lighting,drainage,roads,conservancy,etc. The District Collector in some states has been given powers of surveillance and control over the TAC. Following recommendations of the Rural Urban Relationship Committee,1966, that smaller TACs be merged with Panchayati Raj bodies,Madhya Pradesh and Haryana have done so.


TOWNSHIP:

PSUs are set up by the govt. and housing colonies have been set up around them for the staff and workers. These draw people from rural as well as urban areas and this develops into a kind of a very small town,therefore it is named as a Township.  These townships are administered by the Municipal corporation or Municipality under which it falls which appoints a Town Administrator for this area who is assisted by a few engineers and technicians that handle functions like water,electricity,roads,drainage,markets,parks,etc. The expenditure on such townships are shared equally by the urban local govt. as well as the respective Industry.


CANTONMENT BOARD:

• When a Military station is established in an area,military personnel move in and to provide them facilities for everyday life the civilian population move in like markets,colonies,etc.
•  To administer such areas,the Cantonment boards were set up.
• There are 63 cantonment boards in India at the moment.
• These boards are centrally administered by the Defence Ministry.
•  Board consists of elected and nominated members and the officer commanding the station is the President of the Board. 
• An elected member holds office for three years whereas the nominated ones continue as long as they hold office in that station.

Other agencies/departments are the Pollution Control Board, Housing Boards,Water Supply and Sewage Boards,etc. which are statutory bodies set up under an act of the state government. They help ease the burden off the Municipal bodies as they contain specialists having expertise in the particular field. 

Every state has its development authorities that are the Planning & Controlling Authority for all the urban areas and its members and chairman are appointed by the state government that governs and controls it,for example Delhi Development Authority (DDA) which is an exception as it is also centrally controlled due its sensitive position of being a National Capital Territory. The other states Development Authorities are controlled and governed by their respective state governments.