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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 12 Chapter opening — The Big Questions

Book page 173 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
What are urban local bodies and what are their functions?
Answer

Urban local bodies are the elected governments of our cities and towns — the urban twin of the Panchayats you met in Chapter 11. The chapter’s own definition is on page 175:

“Local government structures in urban areas are called ‘urban local bodies’.
They are decentralised, which means that instead of operating under a central authority
at the top, the local communities have a direct say on how their areas are managed
or the issues they face.”

And the sentence that follows tells you what they are for: “It is a mechanism for citizens living in an area to come together and take decisions about what is best for them.”

There are three kinds, and population decides which one a place gets (page 179).

Urban local bodyAlso calledPopulation it servesKind of placeHead of the elected body
Municipal Corporation‘Mahanagar Nigam’ (Nagar Nigam)Above 10 lakhsA large city — Mumbai, Chennai, IndoreMayor, with a Deputy Mayor
Municipal Council‘Nagar Palika’; in Fig. 12.2 also ‘City Council’Between 1 and 10 lakhsA smaller city or a big townChairperson or President
Nagar PanchayatNagar Palika Parishad in some StatesSmaller populations — below about 1 lakhA town, or a village area that is turning into a townChairperson
Careful: a Nagar Panchayat is an urban body, not a village one. Its name contains the word ‘Panchayat’, but it sits on the right branch of Fig. 12.2, with the Municipal Corporation and the Municipal Council — not on the left with the Gram Panchayat.

How an urban local body is put together. A city is first cut into wards — “Cities and towns are divided into smaller units called ‘wards’” (page 176). The voters of each ward elect one representative, the ward councillor (called a corporator in many corporations). All the councillors together make up the council, and they choose the Mayor or Chairperson from among themselves. Alongside this elected side stands an appointed side, headed by the Municipal Commissioner, who is posted by the State Government and actually runs the offices, the machines and the staff.

How an urban local body is put together THE ELECTED SIDE — chosen by the people THE APPOINTED SIDE — posted by the State People of the Ward every adult voter living in that ward elect Ward Councillor one from each ward; a Ward Committee helps together form The Council of the urban local body all the elected councillors sitting together choose from among themselves MAYOR / CHAIRPERSON State Government makes the law under which the body works appoints MUNICIPAL COMMISSIONER Chief Municipal Officer in a Council The municipal staff engineers, health officers, sanitation workers, fire staff, tax and record clerks decides carries out
The two sides of a city government. The people elect the councillors, and the councillors decide; the State appoints the Commissioner, and the Commissioner’s staff carry the decisions out.

What are their functions? The chapter gives the list on page 176: “urban local bodies are responsible for a range of functions — helping take care of the infrastructure, maintaining the burial ground, garbage collection and disposal, checking the implementation of government schemes, collecting local taxes and fines, and so on. They also have some role in planning for the area’s economic and social development.”

Fig. 12.4 on page 178 turns that list into pictures. Here is what the Indore Municipal Corporation actually does, exactly as the figure shows it:

Group in Fig. 12.4Services shownWhat kind of work this is
Money it collectsProperty tax · Water charges · Business, hoardings, trade licenses“Collecting local taxes and fines” — this is how the Corporation pays for everything else
CleanlinessSolid waste management · Tree cutting & tree transportation“Garbage collection and disposal”, and care of the city’s greenery
Records and permissionsCRM — marriage certificate · CRM — various licensesRegistering and permitting: the Corporation is the city’s record-keeper
Safety and emergenciesCRM — fire services · CRM — water tanker, debris clearanceProtecting life and property when something goes wrong
Listening to citizensCRM — grievancesA complaint window, so a citizen can report a problem and follow it up
Services on requestWater tanker · Septic tanker · Auditorium · Funeral van · Mobile toilet · AmbulanceThings a family or a locality can ask for when it needs them
What CRM means: the figure’s own footnote says CRM: Citizen Relationship Management — the system through which a citizen asks for a service or files a complaint and can then track it. The figure also notes that “the list of services offered by the Indore Municipal Corporation is simplified here”, so a real corporation does even more.
Why the ward matters so much: a city of 20 lakh people cannot meet in one hall the way a Gram Sabha does. So the city is broken into wards small enough for a councillor to know, and the ward committee handles the small, urgent things — “conducting health camps, organising a campaign against the use of single-use plastics”, and watching for “a water leak, a blocked drain, a damaged road”. The ward is where an ordinary city-dweller actually touches their government.
Did you know? Urban local bodies got their present constitutional footing from the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992, which came into force on 1 June 1993 — the twin of the 73rd Amendment that you met in Chapter 11. It added Part IXA, ‘The Municipalities’, to the Constitution and it is the reason the chapter names exactly three kinds of body: a Nagar Panchayat for an area in transition from rural to urban, a Municipal Council for a smaller urban area, and a Municipal Corporation for a larger urban area. The Amendment also fixed a five-year term for every municipality, required elections to be held by a State Election Commission, reserved seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and not less than one-third of the seats for women, provided for Ward Committees in bigger municipalities, and listed 18 subjects in a new Twelfth Schedule that States may hand over to their municipalities. The exact population figures are fixed by each State, which is why the chapter’s 1-lakh and 10-lakh marks are a general rule rather than a number written in the Constitution.
Q2.
Why are they important in governance and democracy?
Answer

Because a city’s daily problems are local problems, and only a local government can be reached in time. A blocked drain, an overflowing dustbin, a street light that has failed, a leaking water pipe — nobody can write to the State capital about these and wait. The chapter’s answer, on page 175, is that urban local bodies are “a mechanism for citizens living in an area to come together and take decisions about what is best for them”.

Five reasons, each of which the chapter itself supports:

  • They bring decisions down to the people. Being “decentralised” means that “instead of operating under a central authority at the top, the local communities have a direct say on how their areas are managed or the issues they face”. That is self-government, not administration from far away.
  • They are elected, so they answer to us. “As with the rural context, urban local bodies have elected members who represent the local citizens” (page 181). Anita says the same thing in her own words on page 180: “we have local bodies and elected representatives who represent us and our interests”. If a councillor ignores the ward, the ward can vote differently next time.
  • They deliver the services that make city life possible. Water, waste, roads, street lighting, licences, fire services, records — the whole of Fig. 12.4. A city where these stop working stops working itself.
  • They make participation possible in a place where everyone is a stranger. Anita admits that in a city “people are more independent and often don’t even know their neighbours”. Wards and ward committees create a small enough unit for a citizen to take part in — a health camp, a plastic-free campaign, a complaint about a broken road.
  • They train citizens in democracy. Sameer’s story on page 181 — children spotted a low-hanging electric wire, reported it, and got an electric post shifted — is exactly what the chapter wants a reader to try in a city too. Anita’s conclusion is the chapter’s conclusion: “that’s how democracy should work. It seems more complicated in the city, but the idea is the same — everyone’s voice matters.”
Why democracy here has two halves, not one: the chapter is careful to say that citizens have duties as well as votes. “For these bodies to be able to perform their functions efficiently, people living in the city must also perform their duties, which means that they must show care and concern for their area (remember, this is a participatory democracy).” If nobody segregates waste, no corporation can keep a city clean; if nobody reports a leak, precious water is simply lost. Urban local bodies and citizens are two hands of the same work.
Tip for the exam: if a question asks “why are urban local bodies important”, do not only list their services. Give the democratic reason first — they are elected, close to the people and answerable to them — and then the practical reason, that they deliver the services citizens use every day.
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