New Delhi, Apr 19 (PTI) With President Ram Nath Kovind giving his assent to a bill which seeks to unify the three civic bodies in the city, an exercise to appoint a ‘special officer’ to run the new body and form a delimitation commission to carry out demarcation of wards will be initiated, officials said.
Experts highlighted that given the current scenario, civic polls are unlikely to take place before early next year due to a delimitation exercise. They added that if the delimitation is carried out based on a fresh census then the election may be delayed by more than a year.
Officials also added that the reduction in number of wards from 272 to 250 in the proposed unified MCD is also likely to affect the composition of several assembly segments in the national capital.
Government and civic officials, privy to the development, clarified that with President’s assent the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, has now become an Act but a notification for the unification of the three civic bodies and other processes like delimitation exercise, appointment of special officer will be issued separately by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
This was also mentioned in the gazette notification approved by President.
“This Act may be called the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022. It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint…Provided that different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act and any reference in any such provision to the commencement of this Act shall be construed as a reference to the coming into force of that provision,” the notification stated.
The legislation was approved by the Lok Sabha on March 30 and by the Rajya Sabha on April 5. The Act talks about reducing the number of wards to 250 from existing 272.
An expert on civic matters and former chairman of the MCD Works Committee, Jagdish Mamgai, said that after this the Centre will appoint a delimitation commission to carry out demarcation of wards followed by reservation and rotation of seats.
He said that it lies with the Centre how soon they want to conduct elections but even if the process is initiated now it will take at least a year.
“If the Centre wants to carry out delimitation exercise after a fresh census then in that case civic polls may get delayed by over a year because first the census will take time and then the delimitation and rotation exercise will be carried out,” Mamgai said.
He added that the unification of the three civic bodies will be “beneficial” for the health of the municipality and also for people.
Currently, the three corporations in Delhi — North Delhi Municipal Corporation, South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) — have 272 wards. While the North and South corporations have 104 wards each, the East corporation has 64.
Officials at the State Election Commission said that since the Act talks about capping the number of wards at 250, the Centre will now form a delimitation commission to start the exercise to reorganise municipal wards in accordance with the population in respective assembly segments.
“The delimitation exercise will take around 6 months. After completion of this exercise its report has to be notified by the Centre and then the process of rotation of wards, and other poll exercises will be started. So it is likely to take around a year to conduct municipal elections in Delhi,” an official of the Commission said, requesting anonymity.
Another expert and former municipal commissioner KS Mehra said that the Act clearly states that the Centre will now provide separate dates for appointment of ‘special officer’ to run the MCD after it is dissolved.
“The Centre may separately through a notification or an order provide dates for implementation of the Act which include subsuming the civic bodies, appointment of special officer and a delimitation commission. The entire process will surely delay the municipal elections,” Mehra said.
The municipal polls were to be held in April and the Delhi State Election Commission had deferred it at the eleventh hour, citing a communication from the Lieutenant Governor, which informed that the Centre was contemplating to reunify the three MCDs.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi was trifurcated in 2011 when late Sheila Dikshit was Delhi’s chief minister and the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre. PTI AKM RCJ
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Source: The Print
