NEW DELHI: To help the delimitation panel redraw boundaries of municipal wards in a time-bound manner, two senior retired government officials have been appointed as consultants, a senior official from the state election commission confirmed.
“Both the selected consultants have experience in working with the census and election commissions in the past and served as joint secretaries,” said the official, adding that the panel is likely to submit a report to the central government in the next three months.
Recently, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had issued a circular advertising the posts of consultants, who could be retired officers of the Election Commission of India/state election commissions or retired officials from the directorate of census operations. “The consultants will be on the civic body’s rolls for at least six months and the period can be extended up to five years,” the circular said.
The delimitation panel was constituted on July 8. “It was asked to submit a report to the Centre in four months. To expedite the process, we have sought help from people who are experienced in such matters,” the official said.
As per instructions of the Central government, the committee is required to carry on the process of delimitation of 250 wards of MCD. And population (on the basis of 2011 census) of each ward in the corporation shall, so far as practicable, be the same throughout the area of the corporation with a variation of plus/minus 10%, said a statement issued by the committee.
According to the panel, due care is being given that each assembly has a minimum of three wards and that boundaries of the ward be carved out in such a way that they are within geographical boundaries of the assembly constituencies. “As wards in each constituency are more or less defined and no major changes required, we are expecting to complete the work in a time-bound manner,” said the official.
