Greater Ghaziabad by 2027: Mega merger to create UP’s biggest municipality with 114 new wards

GHAZIABAD: Greater Ghaziabad may be a reality by 2027. A Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) official told TOI, "Since the panchayat election is due this year, the process has been slowed down. But by the end of this year, we hope to come up with a plan on how we will go about forming Greater Ghaziabad and by 2027, in all probability it will come up."In Aug last year, the UP council of ministers vetted a proposal for Greater Ghaziabad. According to observations made by the council of ministers, the Greater Ghaziabad merger will ensure "all-round development of Loni and Khoda-Makanpur in terms of roads, water, sewer and light". Six months later, the work for assimilating Loni Nagar Palika, Khoda-Makanpur Nagar Palika and Muradnagar Nagar Palika into GMC is steadily progressing. The proposal is now being formalised in the light of two major initiatives — panchayat election and the census that is underway — and by the year-end, the exercise will be completed, "paving the way for Greater Ghaziabad" by next year, officials told TOI."In June 2025, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had mooted the proposal for Greater Ghaziabad. Since then we have been holding meetings with all stakeholders over the issue. We are in the process of acquiring details such as population of each area and satellite imagery," said an official from GMC.The area of GMC, which is 220sqkm at present, will increase to about 300 sqkm, and the population will rise to over 25 lakh from the existing 16 lakh. GMC, which already has 100 wards, will add 55 wards from Loni, 34 wards from Khoda Makanpur and 25 wards from Muradnagar, ending up with 214 wards in the Greater Ghaziabad Board.In UP, there are 17 municipalities, of which Kanpur and Lucknow, with 110 wards, are the largest, followed by Agra and Ghaziabad, which have 100 wards each. But Greater Ghaziabad — after the assimilation of three nagar palikas — will become UP's largest municipality in terms of wards.The merger, it was believed by the council of ministers, will enhance ease of doing business and ease of living since Ghaziabad is a part of Delhi-NCR. The merger will ensure an increase in overall revenue and help achieve a 1 trillion dollar economy in the state."When wards and population go up, central and state grants too rise proportionately. Besides, revenue of the municipality from property taxes will also increase. It will give greater financial leverage to Greater Ghaziabad to carry out development work in all wards," a GMC official had told TOI last year in June. CM Adityanath had said in June he had held talks with public representatives while announcing the plan. "It's time to expand the city by creating Greater Ghaziabad," the CM had said then, adding an expansion of GMC's area would benefit the three nagar palikas.