Definitions

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, - (1) "agency" means a company, firm, society, or body corporate in the private sector, or any agency in the joint sector, or any agency under any other law for the time being in force, as may be appointed by the Municipality to act as its agency on such terms and conditions as the Municipality may determine for any of the purposes of this Act; (2) "Area Sabha" means an Area Sabha referred to in Section 26; (3) "Auditor" means an Auditor appointed under Section 58, and includes any officer authorized by him to perform all or any of the functions of an Auditor under this Act; (4) "backward class of citizens" means the class of citizens, not belonging to the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes, who are backward either socially or educationally, and declared as such by the State Government by notification; (5) "balance sheet" means the balance sheet prepared under Section 57; (6) "bazar" means a bazar area as may be notified by the State Government; (7) "bio-medical waste" means any waste generated during diagnosis, treatment or immunization of human beings or animals or in research activities pertaining thereto or in the production or testing of biologicals; (8) "bridge" includes a culvert; (9) "budget estimate" means the budget estimate prepared under Section 49; (10) "budget grant" means the total sum entered on the expenditure side of a budget estimate under a major head and adopted by the Municipality, and includes any sum by which such budget grant is increased or reduced by transfer from or to other heads in accordance with the provisions of this Act and the rules and the regulations made there under; (11) "building" means a structure constructed for whatever purpose and of whatever materials, and includes the foundation, plinth, walls, floors, roofs, chimneys, fixed platforms, verandas, balconies, cornices or projections or part of a building or anything affixed thereto or any wall (other than a boundary wall of less than three metres in height) enclosing, or intended to enclose, any land, sign or outdoor display-structure but does not include a tent, shamiana or tarpaulin shelter; (12) "carriage" means any wheeled vehicle, with springs or other appliances acting as springs, which is ordinarily used for the conveyance of human beings, and includes a jin-rickshaw, cycle-rickshaw, bicycle or tricycle, but does not include a perambulator or other form of vehicle designed for the conveyance of children or elderly, infirm or handicapped persons; (13) "cart" means any cart, hackney or wheeled vehicle with or without springs, which is not a carriage, and includes a hand- cart, a cycle van and a push van, but does not include any wheeled vehicle which is propelled by mechanical power or its trailer; (14) "category 'A' post" means a category 'A' post classified as such under Section 29; (15) "category 'B' post" means a category 'B' post classified as such under Section 29; (16) "Chief Councillor" means, - (i) in relation to a Municipal Corporation, the Mayor, (ii) in relation to a Municipal Council, the Municipal Chairperson, and (iii) in relation to a Nagar Panchayat, the Municipal President; (17) "Chief Municipal Officer" means, - (i) in relation to a Municipal Corporation, the Municipal Commissioner, and (ii) in relation to a Municipal Council or Nagar Panchayat, the Municipal Executive Officer; (18) "city" means a larger urban area declared to be a city under Section 3; (19) "Councillor", in relation to a Municipality, means a person chosen by direct election from a ward of that Municipality; (20) "cubical extent," with reference to the measurement of a building, means the space contained within the external surface of its walls and roof and the upper surface of the floor of its lowest or only storey; (21) "Dangerous disease" means - (i) cholera, plague, small-pox, cerebrospinal meningitis, diphtheria, tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza, encephalitis, poliomyelitis, or syphilis; or (ii) any other epidemic, endemic, or infectious disease which the Government may, by notification, declare to be a dangerous disease for the purposes of this Act; (22) "Deputy Chief Councillor" means, - (i) in relation to a Municipal Corporation, the Deputy Mayor, (ii) in relation to a Municipal Council, the Municipal Vice-Chairperson, and (iii) in relation to a Nagar Panchayat, the Municipal vice-President: (23) "domestic purposes", in relation to the supply of water, means the purposes other than those referred to in Section 165; (24) "drain" includes a jhora or water-course of natural drainage line, a sewer, a house-drain, a drain of any other description, a tunnel, a culvert, a ditch, a channel or any other device for carrying off sullage, sewage, offensive matter, polluted water, rain-water or sub-soil water; (25) "drug" means any substance used as medicine or in the composition or preparation of medicine, whether for internal or external use, but does not include a drug within the meaning of clause (b) of Section 3 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 (23 of 1940); (26) "dwelling-house" means a masonry building constructed, used, or adapted to be used, wholly or principally for human habitation; (27) "Establishment Schedule" means the Establishment Schedule prepared under sub-section (8) of Section 29; (28) "Executive Authority" means the Executive Authority referred to in Section 20; (29) "financial statement" means the financial statement prepared under Section 56; (30) "food" includes every article used for food or drink by man, other than drugs or water, and any article which ordinarily enters into, or is used in the composition or preparation of, human food, and also includes confectionery, flavoring and coloring matters, spices and condiments; (31) "footpath" means a pavement for use by pedestrians which abuts a category I or category II or category III road; (32) "habitable room" means a room constructed or adapted for human habitation; (33) "hazardous wastes" means the hazardous substance as defined in clause (e) of Section 2 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 (29 of 1986); (34) "house-drain" means any drain of one or more premises used for the drainage of such premises; (35) "house-gully" means a passage or a strip of land constructed, set apart or utilized for the purpose of serving as a drain or affording access to a privy, urinal, cesspool or other receptacle for filthy or polluted matter for municipal employees or for persons employed in the cleaning thereof or removal of such matter there from, and includes the air space above such passage or land; (36) "hut" means any building, no substantial part of which, excluding the walls up to a height of fifty centimeters above the floor or floor level, is constructed of masonry, reinforced concrete, steel, iron or other metal; (37) "infectious disease" or "communicable disease" means any disease which may be transmitted from one person to another and declared as such by the State Government by notification; (38) "larger urban area" means a municipal area classified as a larger urban area under Section 7; (39) "land or building" includes a slum; (40) "market" includes any place, by whatever name called, where persons assemble for the sale of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, live stock, or any other article of food of a perishable nature, or any other article for which there is a collection of shops or warehouses or stalls, declared and licensed by the Municipality as a market; (41) "masonry building" means any building, other than a hut, and includes any structure, a substantial part of which is made of masonry, reinforced concrete, steel, iron or other metal and also includes a framed building; (42) "milk" includes cream, skimmed milk, separated milk, and condensed, sterilized, desiccated or toned milk; (43) "Municipal Accounting Manual" means the Municipal Accounting Manual prepared and maintained under Section 56; (44) "Municipal Accounts Committee" means a Municipal Accounts Committee constituted under Section 67; (45) "municipal area" means an area constituted as a municipal area under Section 6; (46) "Municipal Court" means the Municipal Court created under Section 343; (47) "municipal drain" means a drain vested in the Municipality; (48) "Municipal Fund" means the Municipal Fund referred to in Section 59; (49) "Municipality" means an institution of self-government constituted under section 12, read with article 243Q of the Constitution of India, and includes a Municipal Corporation, a Municipal Council, and a Nagar Panchayat, referred to in Section 13; (50) "municipal market" means a market belonging to, or maintained by, the Municipality; (51) "municipal slaughterhouse" means a slaughterhouse belonging to, or maintained by, the Municipality; (52) "notification" means a notification published in the Official Gazette; (53) "nuisance" includes any act, omission, place or thing which causes, or is likely to cause, injury, danger, annoyance or offence to the sense of sight, smell or hearing, or disturbance to rest or sleep, or which is, or may be, dangerous to life or injurious to health or property; (54) "occupier" includes any person for the time being paying, or liable to pay, to the owner the rent or any portion of the rent of the land or the building in respect of which the word is used or for damages on account of the occupation of such land or building, and also includes a rent-free tenant: Provided that an owner living in, or otherwise using, his own land or building shall be deemed to be the occupier thereof; (55) "Offensive matter" means kitchen or stable refuse, dung, dirt, putrid or putrefying substance, or filth of any kind which is not included in sewage; (56) "owner" includes the person for the time being receiving the rent of any land or building or of any part of any land or building, whether on his own account or as an agent or trustee for any person or society or for any religious or charitable purpose or as a receiver who would receive such rent if the land or the building or of any part of the land or the building were let to a tenant; (57) "population" means the population as ascertained at the last preceding census of which the relevant figures have been published; (58) "premises" means any land or building or part of a building or any hut or part of a hut, and includes - (i) the garden, ground and outhouses, if any, appertaining thereto, and (ii) any fittings or fixtures affixed to a building or part of a building or hut or part of a hut for the more beneficial enjoyment thereof; (59) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this Act; (60) "presiding officer" means, - (i) in the case of a Municipal Corporation, the Mayor, (ii) in the case of a Municipal Council, the Municipal Chairperson, and (iii) in the case of a Nagar Panchayat, the Municipal President; (61) "private drain" means any drain which is not a municipal drain; (62) "private street" means any street, road, lane, gully, alley, passage or square which is not a public street, and includes any passage securing access to four or more premises belonging to the same or different owners, but does not include a passage provided in effecting a partition of any masonry building amongst joint owners where such passage is less than two meters and fifty centimeters wide; (63) "public building" means a masonry building constructed, used, or adapted to be used, - (i) as a place of public worship or as a school, college or other place of instruction (not being a dwelling-house so used) or as a hospital, workhouse, public theatre, public cinema, public hall, public concert-room, public ballroom, public lecture-room, public library or public exhibition room or as a public place of assembly, or (ii) for any other public purpose, or (iii) as a hotel, lodging-house, refuge or shelter, where the building, in cubical extent, exceeds seven thousand cubic metres or has sleeping accommodation for more than one hundred persons; (64) "public street" means any street, road, lane, gully, alley, passage, pathway, square or courtyard, whether a thoroughfare or not, over which the public have a right of way, and includes- (i) the access or approach to a public ferry, (ii) the roadway over any public bridge or causeway, (iii) the footpath attached to any such street, public bridge or causeway, (iv) the passage connecting two public streets, and (v) the drains attached to any such street, public bridge or causeway, and, where there is no drain attached to any such street, shall be deemed to include also, unless the contrary is shown, all land up to the boundary wall, hedge or pillar of the premises, if any, abutting on the street, or, where a street alignment has been fixed, up to such alignment; (65) "regulations" means the regulations made by a Municipality under this Act; (66) "rules" means the rules made by the State Government under this Act; (67) "sewage" means night-soil and other contents of privies, urinals, cesspools or drains, and includes trade effluents and discharges from manufactories of all kinds; (68) "smaller urban area" means a municipal area classified as a smaller urban area under section 7; (69) "street" means a public street or a private street; (70) "street alignment" means the line dividing the land comprised in, and forming part of, a street from the adjoining land; (71) "ward" means an administrative division of a Municipality; (72) "water-course" includes a river, stream or channel, whether natural or artificial; (73) "year" means a financial year beginning on the first day of April.