In the 3-member ward system introduced by the previous MVA Government, the number of Corporators had increased to 156 while the number of wards had swelled to 52
Nagpur: It is back to square one for Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), as the Shinde-Fadnavis Government on Wednesday restored the four-member Prabhag (ward) system which existed in Maharashtra in 2017 when the last civic polls were held. Now NMC would have 151 Corporators and 38 wards like the previous term. In the three-member ward system introduced by the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government, the number of Corporators had increased to 156 while the number of wards had swelled to 52, according to reports in the media.
Gold Rate
24 April 2025
The wait for the new House of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has just got longer as the Maharashtra Government revised the norms of seats in relation to the base of population. As decided by the Government, for a population base in the range of 24 to 30 lakh, which fits Nagpur, the maximum number of corporators can be 161.
The State Government decision is cryptic but political grapevine is claiming that the old four-member Prabhag system is on cards in the ensuing elections. The Cabinet, on Wednesday, decided to revise the seats vis-a-vis population ratio in the municipal corporations.
In case of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the number of seats have been reduced from 236 to 227. In other corporations, it was decided that for a population between 3 lakh plus and 6 lakh the elected members would be minimum 65 and maximum 85. For a population in excess of 3 lakh, for every 15,000 voters one additional member would be added to the strength of the House.
In cities with a population range of 6 lakh to 12 lakh, the number of elected members would be 85 and maximum 115. For every 20,000 voters in excess of six lakh, one additional member would be added to the House. For a population base of 12 lakh and more, one additional member would be elected from among 40,000 voters. For the population base of 24 lakh and more, for every additional 50,000 voters one additional member would be elected. For a population of 30 lakh plus, one additional member would be added for every one lakh population thereafter. Also in Corporation having a population of 12 lakh to 24 lakh, the minimum strength of the House would be 115 and maximum 151.
With a population ratio of 24 lakh to 30 lakh, the minimum number of members’ strength would be 151 and maximum 161. One thing that has now become clear is the process of elections to NMC and other corporations is going to get pushed to next year as the entire procedure would need to be conducted afresh, said the experts.
After the cancellation of the newly-announced ward delimitation, election to the civic body would be held by January-February 2023. The administration will have to almost start from scratch and to the entire election process. The civic administration would have to undo its previous hard work that went into finalisation of reservation and drawing-up boundaries of the 3-member Prabhag system. It is set to be dumped in case the 4-member Prabhag system is notified.
The current process of scrutinising objections after the draw of lots for determining seats to be reserved for OBC too now holds little value. Similarly, the previous process undertaken by the civic administration as to finalisation of reservations for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes and women representatives was almost cancelled. The State Government will be issuing a notification later to guide civic administrations and local self government bodies about the next set of procedures for elections. Though exact contours of the Government decision would only be known after the notification is issued, political circles are claiming that the 3-member Prabhag system is now history.
The MVA government led by the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had scrapped the four-member system during the winter assembly session held in Nagpur in 2019. The three coalition partners – Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena — had initially brought back the single-member ward system, which they thought would benefit them.
After facing opposition from its own leaders, the MVA Government had introduced a three-member ward system across all corporations. The BJP, which was in opposition then, had vehemently opposed the move to scrap the four-member system.
