‘Delimitation panel has expedited work and it is carving out municipal wards in the national capital’.
NEW DELHI: Delhi may soon witness MCD polls. According to various reports, the delimitation panel has increased the speed of work and it is carving out municipal wards in the national capital. The exercise is expected to be completed by November this year.
Under this exercise, the panel has planned to divide each Assembly constituency into three wards. After delimitation, the average population of each ward will be kept between 65,000-67000. The panel constituted last month on 8 July has three members. Vijay Dev, state election commissioner, Pankaj Kumar Singh, the joint secretary in the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, and Randhir Sahay, the additional commissioner of MCD.
The three-member delimitation panel has been asked to complete the process and submit its final report within four months of its constitution. According to sources, the panel is using digitised maps provided by Geospatial Delhi Limited for the delimitation of municipal wards and physical surveys will be conducted only when there is any confusion about wards and population.
The process of redrawing of municipal wards is going on at a good pace. It is expected that the exercise will be completed by November 2022. At least two meetings are held every week for better results and to further expedite it, sources said. An official order by the Ministry of Home Affairs told the panel that there will only be 250 wards in the city, 22 less than the earlier arrangement. The three erstwhile corporations in Delhi comprised 272 wards, 104 each in the North and South corporations and 64 in the East. The Directorate of Census Operations has provided data in respect of the Enumeration Block based on the Census 2011 data. The redrawing of wards is being done on the basis of 2011 census data.
On 22 May, the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022 came into force which merged three Municipal bodies into one. The MCD was trifurcated in 2012 during Sheila Dikshit’s Congress government in the national capital. It is now reunified by merging three civic bodies North, South and East Municipal Corporations.
The MCD polls in the national capital were originally scheduled for April, but were put off hours before the election schedule was to be announced. The election was called off as the BJP-led Central government wanted to unify the MCDs and also conduct delimitation to decrease the number of wards.