Definitions

Section 2 of the Assam Municipal Corporation Act, 2022 deals with definitions. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,- (1) "annual value" means the value of any land or building determined under the provisions of this Act;

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,- (1) "annual value" means the value of any land or building determined under the provisions of this Act;

(2) " Appellate Authority" means the Empowered Standing Committee as provided under section 12 of this Act;

(3) " Auditor" means an Auditor appointed by the Government for performing Audit of the accounts of the Corporation;

(4) " Authority" means any authority established under any Central or State Act for the time being in force;

(5) "balance sheet" means the balance sheet prepared for the accounts of the Corporation;

(6) "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;

(7) "bridge" includes a culvert;

(8) "budget estimate" means the budget estimate prepared for the probable receipt and expenditure of the Corporation;

(9) "budget grant" means the total sum entered on the expenditure side of a budget estimate under a major head and adopted by the Corporation, 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 thereunder;

(10) "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;

(11) "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 à perambulator or other form of vehicle designed for the conveyance of children or elderly, infirm or handicapped persons;

(12) "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;

(13) "Commissioner" means in relation to the Corporation, the Commissioner so appointed by the Government on deputation;

(14) "Corporation" means the Corporation established under this Act;

(15) "Councillor", in relation to the Corporation means a person chosen by direct election from a ward of that Corporation;

(16) "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;

(17) "dangerous disease" means - (a) cholera, plague, small-pox, cerebrospinal meningitis, diphtheria, tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza, encephalitis, poliomyelitis, or syphilis; or (b) any other epidemic, endemic, or infectious disease which the State Government may, by notification, declare to be a dangerous disease for the purposes of this Act;

(18) "Delimitation Board" shall mean the Delimitation Board constituted for the purpose of redefining the boundaries of wards;

(19) "Director of Local Bodies" means an officer appointed as such by the State Government, and includes a Director, an Additional Director, a Joint Director, a Deputy Director, or any other officer of the State Government authorized by it to perform the functions of the Director of Municipal Administration;

(20) "drain" includes 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;

(21) "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 Central Act 23 and Cosmetics Act, 1940; of 1940.

(22) "dwelling-house" means a masonry building constructed, used, or adapted to be used, wholly or principally for human habitation;

(23) "Empowered Standing Committee" means the Empowered Standing Committee referred to in section 12 of the Act;

(24) "financial statement" means the financial statement prepared under this Act;

(25) "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, flavouring and colouring matters, spices and condiments;

(26) "footpath" means a pavement for use by pedestrians;

(27) "habitable room" means a room constructed or adapted for human habitation;

(28) "hazardous process" means the hazardous process defined in clause (cb) of section 2 of the Factories Act, 1948; Central Act 63 of 1948.

(29) "hazardous wastes" means the categories of wastes specified as such in the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; Central Act 29 of 1986.

(30) "house-drain" means any drain of one or more premises used for the drainage of such premises;

(31) "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 therefrom, and includes the air space above such passage or land;

(32) "hut" means any building, no substantial part of which, excluding the walls up to a height of fifty centimetres above the floor or floor level, is constructed of masonry, reinforced concrete, steel, iron or other metal;

(33) "industrial township" means such urban area or part thereof as the Governor may, having regard to the size of the area and the municipal services being provided or proposed to be provided by an industrial establishment in that area and such other factors as he may deem fit, by notification, specify to be an industrial township;

(34) "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;

(35) "land or building" includes a slum;

(36) "market" includes any place, by whatever name called, where persons assemble for the sale of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, livestock, 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 Corporation as a market;

(37) "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;

(38) "milk" includes cream, skimmed milk, separated milk, and condensed, sterilized, desiccated or toned milk; aco (39) "Municipal ccounts Committee" means a Municipal Accounts Committee constituted under this Act;

(40) "municipality area" means an area constituted as a Municipal Corporation area under this Act;

(41) "municipal drain" means a drain vested in the Corporation;

(42) "Municipal Fund" means the Municipal Fund referred to in section 53 of the Act;

(43) "Municipal Magistrate" means the Municipal Magistrate appointed under this Act;

(44) "municipal market" means a market belonging to, or maintained by, the Corporation;

(45) "municipal slaughterhouse" means a slaughterhouse belonging to, or maintained by, the Corporation;

(46) "Municipal Valuation Committee" means the Municipal Valuation Committee constituted under this Act;

(47) "municipality" means the Municipal Corporation so notified under the provisions of this Act.

(48) "notification" means a notification published in the Official Gazette;

(49) "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;

(50) "occupier" includes aC 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;

(51) "offensive matter" means kitchen or stable refuse, dung, dirt, putrid or putrefying substance, or filth of any kind which is not included in sewage;

(52) "other agency" means a company, firm, society, or body corporate in the private sector, or any institution, or government agency, or any joint sector agency, or any agency under any other law for the time being in force;

(53) "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;

(54) "population" means the population as ascertained at the last preceding census of which the relevant figures have been published;

(55) "premises" means any land or building or part of a building or any hut or part of a hut, and includes - (a) the garden, ground and outhouses, if any, appertaining thereto, and (b) 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;

(56) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this Act or Bye-Laws made under this Act;

(57) "presiding officer" means in the case of the Municipal Corporation, the Mayor;

(58) "private drain" means any drain which is not a municipal drain;

(59) "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 metres and fifty centimetres wide;

(60) "public building" means a masonry building constructed, used, or adapted to be used, - (a) 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 (b) for any other public purpose, or (c) 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;

(61) "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- (a) the access or approach to a public ferry, (b) the roadway over any public bridge or causeway, (c) the footpath attached to any such street, public bridge or causeway, (d) the passage connecting two public streets, and (e) 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;

(62) "regulations" means the regulations made by the Corporation under this Act;

(63) "rules" means the rules made by the State Government under this Act;

(64) "sewage" means night-soil and other contents of privies, urinals, cesspools or drains, and includes trade effluents and discharges from manufactories of all kinds;

(65) "street" means a public street or a private street;

(66) "street alignment" means the line dividing the land comprised in, and forming part of, a street from the adjoining land;

(67) "water-course" includes a river, stream or channel, whether natural or artificial;

(68) "year" means a financial year beginning on the first day of April. Chapter II Constitution of the Corporation Declaration of intention to constitute a Municipal Corporation area.

Section 2, The Assam Municipal Corporation Act, 2022 (Act 8 of 2022).