Vijayawada is also called as Bezawada, is the third largest city in Andhra Pradesh, India, located on the River banks of the Krishna and bounded by the Indrakiladri Hills on the West and the Budameru River on the North. The city is located in the Krishna District, about 275 kms from the state capital Hyderabad.
Vijayawada literally translates to "The Place of Victory". Vijayawada is also a center of Andhra politics. It is referred to as the political capital of Andhra Pradesh. Its prominence as a major trading and business center has earned it the title of the "Business Capital of Andhra Pradesh”, situated along the Chennai-Howrah and Chennai-Delhi Railway route, this is the largest railway junction in South India.
About the western outskirts of Vijayawada lies the Kondapalli reserve forest, spread over 121.5 square kilometres (30,000 acres). The forest provides Vijayawada with a "green lung". This pristine forest is home to leopards, wild dogs, jackals, wild boar, wolves etc. The hills produce a soft wood is used for preparing Kondapalli Toys.
The city of Vijayawada is run by the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation. The Municipality of Vijayawada was constituted on 1st APR, 1888 and was upgraded as a selection grade municipality in the year 1960. The municipality was upgraded to a corporation in 1981. With the merger of Gunadala, Patamata and Bhavanipuram village panchayats and two villages payakapuram and Kundavari kandrika in the corporation in 1985. More than 200,000 people in metro reside outside corporation limits. Many areas on outskirts or yet to be merged into corporation limits. The total area of the corporation is 61.8 square kilometres (23.9 sq mi) and the population of the whole city (along with Vijayawada Sub-Urban and Vijayawada Rural) is more than 2.5 Million.
The city is divided into 59 political wards. An elected body headed by the Mayor performs the Administration of the Corporation. The Commissioner acts as the executive head, and oversees the day to day functioning of the local body. The commissioner is a (IAS) officer of Joint collector rank appointed by the state government.
It has a dedicated Sub-Collectors office for Administration of State and Central Government Programmes. The staff strength of the corporation is just over 5,000. Vijayawada is one of the three cities in andhra pradesh to be provided with its own police commissioner-ate.The Vijayawada City Police is headed by a Police Commissioner, who is an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of DIG rank.termed as one of planned city.
