Delimitation Of Wards : Government gets into civic poll mode

Hyderabad: With the High Court giving green signal for the conduct of civic polls in the state, the Telangana government has initiated the process of delimitation of wards in 121 municipalities and 10 Corporations by issuing a notification on Tuesday.

The Municipal Administration and Urban Development department issued the notification for taking up delimitation of wards in the municipalities and municipal corporations.

The government will give a public notification in newspapers on Wednesday for getting suggestions and objections after releasing the list of delimitation of wards.

According to the schedule, suggestions and objections from the general public would be accepted from December 3 to December 9 till 5 pm on the last day. Officials would dispose of the suggestions and objections on the draft rolls by December 16.

The final notification of the division of wards by the government would be on December 17. Apart from the delimitation of wards, the authorities would also be finalise the reservations. They would allocate wards based on the population of SCs, STs and BCs.

The officials have been asked to go through the suggestions received from the public carefully and issue speaking orders to the applicants on the status of disposal of the representation without fail.

The speaking orders should clearly state the reason for the acceptance or rejection.

According to the officials, the State Election Commission would release the ward-wise electoral rolls after the delimitation and reservations are finalised.

Out of the 128 municipalities and 13 Corporations in the state, elections would be held in 121 municipalities and 10 Corporations.

The term of corporations including the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation (GWMC) and Khammam are yet to get completed.

The process will be completed by December 17 after taking up the delimitation and also reservations in wards.

The State Election Commission is also ready to take up the elections any time after the process of the state government completes. The SEC authorities have asked the Collectors to be ready for taking up the municipal elections.

The SEC has already planned for smooth conduct of the elections in the state. The officials have been asked to have a polling station for every 800 voters in the wards.

The authorities are making plans to have 8,056 polling stations in the civic bodies going for polls.

Regarding the election expenditure, the Commission has prescribed a limit of Rs 1 lakh for a candidate in municipalities and Rs 1.5 lakh in the Corporations. There are 79,92,434 voters in the municipalities and Corporations.