Hyderabad: The city has entered a new phase of urban governance with the Core Urban Region (Integrated Governance) Act, 2026 coming into force, replacing a legal framework that governed the city for nearly seven decades.
Notified in the Telangana Gazette on Oct 2, the Act creates a metropolitan governance framework for the Core Urban Region (CURE), bringing the municipal corporations of Greater Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Malkajgiri under a coordinated system. The framework comes at a time when the metropolitan region has expanded to a population of nearly 1.3 crore. More than 4,100 suggestions and comments were received during the public consultation, with more than 3,100 relating to property-tax reforms.
Instead of every agency dealing with an issue within its own administrative boundaries, the Act provides for metropolitan-level coordination between the three corporations and key civic agencies,” said Jayesh Ranjan, special chief secretary, municipal administration and urban development. The new law seeks to address one of Hyderabad’s long-standing civic challenges — the fragmentation of responsibilities among multiple agencies. A single road, for instance, can involve a municipal corporation, water board, electricity utility, traffic police and other departments. Similarly, flooding can involve stormwater drains, lakes, roads, encroachments and construction activity under different authorities. The CURE framework is intended to bring these agencies onto a common platform and enable coordinated decision-making on issues that cut across municipal boundaries. “Hyderabad is moving from a model where several departments separately manage pieces of the city towards one framework designed to make those pieces work together. During the draft stage, the proposed changes to the property-tax system attracted thousands of representations. A major point of contention was the proposed shift from the Annual Rental Value (ARV) system to the Capital Value System (CVS). Residents and property owners had argued that taxation based on property values could increase their financial burden.
One of the provisions that could have an impact on residents is CURE 1, a common billing and payment system proposed to integrate multiple civic charges. For residents and property owners, the immediate areas to watch under the new framework will include property tax reassessment and implementation of the CVS, revision of guideline values and their impact on tax liabilities, penalties for unauthorised constructions and building deviations, separate sewerage charges. The system can bring water charges, sewerage charges, property tax, sanitation charges and other municipal dues into a consolidated billing and payment interface. The Act also creates a CURE executive committee, bringing together the commissioners of the three municipal corporations, police commissioners, district collectors and senior officials from agencies including the power utility, HMWSSB, Hyderabad Metro, TGSRTC and HYDRAA. The committee is tasked with identifying issues requiring inter-departmental intervention and ensuring coordination among the various departments, authorities and corporations.
It provides a more contemporary framework for assessing properties in a growing city,” a senior municipal administration official said. “We have understood that the CVS is a more accurate and realistic basis for property-tax assessment, particularly when Hyderabad’s rapid growth, expanding urban footprint and future development are taken into account.