The 21st century is labelled as an urban century because for the first time since dawn of civilization more people are residing in urban areas than in rural areas. This trend is also reflected in India where the share of urban population has been raising over the last several decades. Presently 31.16% of the total population or 377.1 Million persons live in urban India up from 27.82% in 2001 to 31.16% in 2011. India is urbanizing rapidly and it is expected that by 2050, 50% of the population live in urban areas. Rapid urbanization is taking place both in Andhra Pradesh & Telangana States as per 2011 Census.
Municipal Bodies have a long history in India. The first such body called ‘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 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 in the year 1882. Ripon has been rightly called the father of Local Self Government in India.
Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Andhra Pradesh are traditionally mandated to undertake certain basic civic functions like water supply, sanitation, roads, drains, street lighting etc., They also perform certain regulatory functions like, regulation of land use, issue of building permissions, issue of trade license and removal of encroachments etc., After the advent of Constitution 74th Amendment Act (CAA), 1992, the functional domain of Urban Local Bodies has been expanded to include development programmers along with traditional civic functions. Added to this, happening globalization, liberalization and more critically, the urban explosion has increased the volume of services to be delivered by the Urban Local Bodies.
