Civic administration of Kolkata

The civic administration of Kolkata (the metropolitan city and the capital of the West Bengal state of India) is executed by several government agencies, and consists of overlapping structural divisions. Kolkata's administrative agencies have areas of jurisdiction that do not coincide.

At least four administrative definitions of the city are available; listed in ascending order of area, those are:

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 144 wards of the KMC. "City" in relation to Kolkata is not an official term; when used, it normally refers to the KMC area.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation, or KMC, oversees and manages the civic infrastructure of the city's 15 boroughs, which together encompass 144 wards. Each ward elects a councillor to the KMC. Each borough has a committee of councillors, each of whom is elected to represent a ward. By means of the borough committees, the corporation undertakes urban planning and maintains roads, government-aided schools, hospitals, and municipal markets. As Kolkata's apex body, the corporation discharges its functions through the mayor-in-council, which comprises a mayor, a deputy mayor, and ten other elected members of the KMC. The functions of the KMC include water supply, drainage and sewerage, sanitation, solid waste management, street lighting, and building regulation.

...
Wikipedia