The boundary of 272 municipal wards of three civic bodies is going to be redefined in the national Capital. lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung has given his nod for setting up a committee for delimitation of 272 municipal wards in the city.
The approval came on a proposal of the Delhi Government’s Urban Development (UD) Department, which had sought permission from the l-G following request of the State Election Commission. After getting the nod from Jung and AAP Government, the Commission has reportedly set a year-long deadline to complete the mammoth delimitation exercise in all the municipal wards.
Top sources told The Pioneer that the l-G has given approval to the UD Department proposal on behalf of State Election Commission to allow delimitation of municipal wards across the city in the wake of Census 2011. The powers for delimitation of wards in Delhi have been delegated by the Centre to the l-G as per provisions of Section 3 and 5 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957.
According to sources, State Election Commissioner Rakesh Mehta had written to the l-G and Chief Secretary of Delhi seeking their nod to initiate the process of redefining the boundaries of municipal wards, which was mandatory after every 10 years. Sources said the Raj Niwas was in the process of appointing the delimitation committee which may include a municipal secretary as its member and five legislators and five corporators as its associate members.
Mehta said very soon a task-force would be set up with the municipal bodies to carry out extensive survey of all the 272 municipal wards. He said the primary job of the task force would be to finalise boundaries of new municipal wards. He said help of the Geospatial data would also be taken in demarcating new wards. The commission would try its best to get the entire delimitation exercise done within a year, he said.
The State Election Commission had also sought funds to the tune of Rs30 lakh to carry out the delimitation process. At present, there are 272 municipal wards of three municipal bodies in the national Capital. There were only 100 wards in Delhi in 1991.
The Commission will follow the 2011 census data to finalise the boundaries. He has obtained maps (GIS mapping) of all municipal wards.
When asked whether the boundaries of some wards may be changed, Mehta said that it is possible as population of some wards have increased significantly, while some areas such as Kashmere Gate has witnessed decline in population in he last few years.
The 2011 census data, the population Kashmere Gate is just 15,288 while Hastsal municipal ward has population of 1,45,715. Similarly, Holambi Kalan in North-West has 42,392 residents while Saadatpur Musalman has 11,019.
There are wards where the population has nearly doubled. Among the wards where the population has increased manifolds are Mukundpur, Burari, Bhalswa, Pooth Kalan, Bawana, Mundaka, Pratap Vihar, Kirari Suleman Nagar, Nangloi East, Hastsal, Mohan Garden, Nangli Sakravati, Karkaula, Matiala, Kapashera, Jaitpur and Madanpur Khadar.
The boundaries of these wards are likely to be reduced.
Among the wards whose population has gone down are Bhalaswa Jehangirpuri, GTB Nagar, Sarai Pipal Thala, Peeragarhi, Pitampura South, Shalimar Bagh South, Saraswati Vihar, Nimri Colony, Wazirpur, Kamla Nagar, Model Town, Deputy Ganj, Kashmere Gate, Chandni Chowk, Minto Road, Bazar Sita Ram, Ballimaran, Ram Nagar, Paharganj, Madel Basti, Karol Bagh, Dev Nagar, Baljit Nagar, Mansarovar Garden, Karampura, Rajouri Garden, Tagore Garden, Nangal Raya, Janakpuri South, Pusa, Inder Puri, Daryaganj, Nizamuddin, lajpat Nagar, Kasturba Nagar, Amar Colony, Malviya Nagar, Hauz Khas, Greater Kailash-I and Babarpur. The boundaries of these wards are likely to be increased.
The Delimitation Commission will take a fresh look at all the municipal wards and demarcate their boundaries with the new population figures in mind. Some wards would be merged with others while new wards would be created as per new population figures.
The last delimitation of 136 municipal wards was carried out in 2007.
That was based on the 2001 census data. The 136 municipal wards were increased to 272 after trifurcation of municipal body in 2012.