A local area with more than 12,000 and less than 40,000 inhabitants is…

Concept

Under the 74th Constitutional Amendment (Article 243Q), urban local bodies are constituted in three tiers according to an area's population and its degree of urbanisation: a Nagar Panchayat for a transitional area (one changing from rural to urban), a Municipal Council for a smaller urban area, and a Municipal Corporation for a larger urban area. By the widely-used population guideline, an urban centre with more than 12,000 and fewer than 40,000 inhabitants is treated as a Nagar Panchayat.

Application

The stem describes a local area with more than 12,000 and less than 40,000 inhabitants. This population band lies within the Nagar Panchayat range — a settlement in transition from rural to urban — so the area is classified as a Nagar Panchayat.

Contrast

• Village Panchayat — the rural local self-government unit under the Panchayati Raj system; it administers villages, so it lies outside the urban classification entirely.

• Municipal Council — governs an established smaller urban area whose population is larger than this band; it is constituted above this population level.

• Municipality — the municipal body for a settled, fully-urbanised town of larger population; this smaller figure does not reach the municipality threshold.

Result: Nagar Panchayat.