Panchayati raj in India in the context of "Nagar Panchayat"

A tehsil (Hindustani: [t̪ɛɦsiːl], also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka (IPA: [t̪aːluːkaː t̪aːluːku]) is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administrative centre, with possible additional towns, and usually a number of villages. The terms in India have replaced earlier terms, such as pargana (pergunnah) and thana.

In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, a newer unit called mandalamu (circle) has come to replace the tehsil system. A mandal is generally smaller than a tehsil, and is meant for facilitating local self-government in the panchayat system. In West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, community development blocks (CDBs) are the empowered grassroots administrative unit, replacing tehsils.

A nagar panchayat (transl. 'town council') or town panchayat or Notified Area Council (NAC) in India is a settlement in transition from rural to urban and therefore a form of an urban political unit comparable to a municipality. An urban centre with more than 12,000 and less than 40,000 inhabitants is classified as a nagar panchayat. The population requirement for a town panchayat can vary from state to state.

Such councils are formed under the panchayati raj administrative system. In census data, the abbreviation T.P. is used to indicate a "town panchayat". Tamil Nadu was the first state to introduce the panchayat town as an intermediate step between rural villages and urban local bodies (ULB). The structure and the functions of the nagar panchayat are decided by the state government.

Conservation reserves and community reserves in India are terms denoting protected areas of India which typically act as buffer zones to or connectors and migration corridors between established national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserved and protected forests of India. Such areas are designated as conservation areas if they are uninhabited and completely owned by the Government of India but used for subsistence by communities, and community areas if part of the lands are privately owned. Administration of such reserves would be through local people and local agencies like the gram panchayat, as in the case of communal forests. (See Communal forests of India)

Community reserves are the first instances of private land being accorded protection under the Indian legislature. It opens up the possibility of communally owned for-profit wildlife resorts, and also causes privately held areas under non-profit organizations like land trusts to be given protection. (See Private protected areas of India)

Local government in India is governmental jurisdiction below the level of the state. Local self-government means that residents in towns, villages and rural settlements are the people who elect local councils and their heads authorising them to solve the important issues. India is a federal republic with three spheres of government: union, state and local. The 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments give recognition and protection to local governments and in addition each state has its own local government legislation. Since 1992, local government in India takes place in two very distinct forms. Urban localities, covered in the 74th amendment to the Constitution, have Municipality but derive their powers from the individual state governments, while the powers of rural localities have been formalized under the panchayati raj system, under the 73rd amendment to the Constitution.

Within the Administrative setup of India, the democratically elected Local governance bodies are called the "municipalities" (abbreviated as the "MC") in urban areas and the "Panchayati Raj Institutes (PRI)" (simply called the "panchayats") in rural areas.There are 3 types of municipalities based on the population (the criteria differs from state to state), Municipal Corporation (Nagar Nigam) with more than 1 million population, Municipal Councils (Nagar Palika) with more than 25,000 and less than 1 million population, and Municipal Committee (Town Panchayat) with more than 10,000 and less than 25,000 population.The Constitution does not define what exactly would constitute larger or smaller urban area or an area of transition from rural to urban. It has been left to the state governments to fix their own criteria. The Article also states that apart from population, other parameters such as density of population, percentage of population in non-agricultural employment, annual revenue generation etc., may be taken into account by the states. PRIs in rural areas have 3 hierarchies of panchayats, Gram panchayats at village level, Panchayat Samiti at block level, and Zilla panchayats at district level.