While the intent behind creating a mega-Hyderabad is appreciable, one must not lose sight of the real purpose of municipal administration — resolving people’s issues related to basic civic facilities at the local level
The Telangana government has finally notified the administrative setup to govern the newly extended civic body of Hyderabad — the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) — officially unveiling the country’s largest municipal corporation.
Until the first week of December, the Hyderabad metropolitan region, encircled by the Outer Ring Road, was administered by an array of mismatched civic bodies, including GHMC, seven other municipal corporations and 20 municipalities. Of these, GHMC was the largest civic body, with a territorial jurisdiction of 650 square kilometres.
In January 2025, chief minister A. Revanth Reddy first spoke of the need to streamline municipal administration and consolidate the city under a single authority, on the lines of several global cities. Large cities can build city-wide systems with long-term planning. As a result, the Congress government merged all 27 urban local bodies into Hyderabad, creating the country’s largest municipal corporation with a geographical spread of 2,000 sq. km and a population of 1.34 crores.
Compared to the extended GHMC, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation administers an area of 480 sq. km, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike 709 sq. km, the Greater Chennai Corporation 426 sq. km and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation 206 sq. km. Even the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which was split into three urban bodies in 2012, governed 1,397.3 sq. km in terms of territory. GHMC is 2.5 times bigger than Singapore and nearly as large as Mauritius.
While the intent behind creating a mega-Hyderabad is appreciable, one must not lose sight of the real purpose of municipal administration — resolving people’s issues related to basic civic facilities at the local level. However, if a city becomes bigger than 27 very small countries, larger than the national capital Delhi (1,484 sq. km) and two-thirds the size of a state like Goa, its administration may become unwieldy, effectively turning it into a state within a state. People must be able to access basic necessities closer to home.
