Madurai - Administration and Politics

Administration and Politics

The municipality of Madurai was constituted on 1 November 1866 as per the Town Improvement Act of 1865. The municipality was headed by a chairperson and elections were regularly conducted for the post except during the period 1891 to 1896, when no elections were held due to violent factionalism. During the early years of independent India, the Madurai municipality was dominated by reformists of the Indian National Congress. Madurai was upgraded to a municipal corporation on 1 May 1971 as per the Madurai City Municipal Corporation Act, 1971. It is the second oldest municipal corporation in Tamil Nadu, after Chennai. The functions of the municipality are devolved into six departments: General, Engineering, Revenue, Public Health, Town planning and the Computer Wing. All these departments are under the control of a Municipal Commissioner who is the supreme executive head. The legislative powers are vested in a body of 100 members, one each from the 100 wards. The legislative body is headed by an elected Mayor assisted by a Deputy Mayor. The corporation received several awards in 2008 for implementing development works.

The city of Madurai is represented in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly by five elected members, one each for the Madurai East, Madurai West, Madurai North, Madurai Central and Madurai South constituencies. Madurai is also a part of the Madurai Lok Sabha constituency and elects a member to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India, once every five years. From 1957, the Madurai parliament seat was held by the Indian National Congress for 7 times in the 1962–67, 1971–77, 1977–80, 1980–84, 1984–89, 1989–91 and 1991 elections. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) won the seat three times during 1967–71, 1999–2004 and 2004–09 general elections. The Communist Party of India (1957–61), Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) (1996–98), Janata Party (1998) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (2009) have won once each.

Law and order is enforced by the Tamil Nadu Police, which, for administrative purposes, has constituted Madurai city as a separate district. The district is divided into four sub-divisions, namely Thallakulam, Anna Nagar, Thilagar Thidal and Town, with a total of 27 police stations. The Madurai city police force is headed by a Commissioner of police assisted by Deputy Commissioners. Law and order enforcement in the suburban areas are handled by the Madurai district police. In 2008, the crime rate in the city was 283.2 per 100,000 people, accounting for 1.1 per cent of all crimes reported in major cities in India and ranked 19th among 35 major cities in India in the incidence of crimes. As of 2008, Madurai recorded second highest SLL (Special and Local Laws) crimes of 22,728 among cities in Tamil Nadu. However, Madurai had the second lowest crime rate of 169.1 of all the cities in Tamil Nadu. The city is also the seat of a bench of the Madras High Court, being one of only a few that exist outside the state capitals of India. It started functioning in July 2004.