Governing Bodies
At least five administrative definitions of the city are available; listed in ascending order of area, those are:
- Kolkata District,
- the Kolkata Police area and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area ("Kolkata city"),
- "Greater Kolkata", which adds to the KMC area a few areas just adjacent to it,
- the Kolkata Metropolitan Area.
The area within which the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) functions also has the following authorities involved in administration: the KMC itself, the Kolkata Collector (see Kolkata District), the Kolkata Police, the Collector / District Magistrate (DM) of South 24 Parganas District, and the Superintendent of Police (SP) of South 24 Parganas District.
The Kolkata Collector collects land revenues within Kolkata district, a part of the area within which the KMC functions; In those KMC wards that are outside Kolkata district, revenue collection is performed by the Collector/DM of South 24 Parganas District. In 2011, Kolkata Police underwent restructuring, and as of 2012, the Kolkata Police area and Kolkata Municipal Area are same.
It may seem paradoxical that the area of a district should be a subset of one urban area, since normally a district contains numerous urban areas as well as rural areas. This and the various other complications of Kolkata's government are mostly explained by the fact that Kolkata's gradual urban sprawl had somehow to be accommodated to existing political boundaries.
The KMC's entire area comprises all 141 wards of the KMC. "City" in relation to Kolkata is not an official term; when used, it normally refers to the KMC area.
Read more about this topic: Civic Administration Of Kolkata
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