Discrepancies found mainly in JMC, SMC
*Reservations after OBC Comm report
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, July 2: An exercise is on for delimitation of Wards in all Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) including Municipal Corporations, Councils and Committees with a view to ensure balanced population in all Wards especially in Jammu and Srinagar Municipal Corporations where number of voters have large scale variations. The process being executed by the Deputy Commissioners has been completed in some of the districts and will be over in the entire UT soon and put in public domain for objections.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the process for delimitation of Wards under Municipal Corporations and Municipal Committees Act has been initiated by the State Election Commission (SEC) which has been designated by the Government to hold elections to the ULBs and Panchayats. All 20 Deputy Commissioners in the UT have been assigned the task of delimitation of Wards of the Corporations, Councils and Committees.
“Delimitation of the Wards in JMC and SMC was necessitated as there was vast difference of population in some of the Wards. As per the Act, a Corporation Ward had to be based on average 7500 population. However, in JMC, certain Wards had 6000 population while others had 27,000. Similar is the case in some Wards of the SMC,’’ the officials said.
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Problems of uneven population in the Wards are largely confined to JMC and SMC while Municipal Councils and Committees have no such major issues. However, delimitation of Wards has also been ordered for Councils and Committees, where the Wards have to be based on almost equal population.
State Election Commissioner BR Sharma recently chaired a meeting of all 20 Deputy Commissioners through video conferencing and directed them to expedite the process of delimitation of Wards and put them in public domain for objections before finalizing the task.
As per the sources, nearly 10 districts are expected to complete the task of delimitation of Wards in the ULBs under their jurisdiction shortly while 10 others will also come up with draft proposals after few days.
“Once delimitation of the Wards is finalized, other steps will be taken for conduct of Municipal elections in Jammu and Kashmir,’’ the sources said.
The major task before conduct of the polls is reservation of Wards for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) who were granted reservation in Panchayats and Municipalities by the Central Government in February this year. The UT Government has set up a Commission for deciding percentage to be given to the OBCs in Panchayats and Municipalities. The Commission has been given 45 days time to give its report.
The Municipal and Panchayat elections were scheduled to be held in Jammu and Kashmir in October-November last year after completion of their five years term. However, they were delayed as the UT and Central Governments decided to give reservations to the OBCs in both the bodies. The Parliament passed a bill to this effect in February this year.
Last elections to Municipalities were held in October-November 2018 while the Panchayat polls were conducted in November-December 2018.
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