Published On : Tue, May 10th, 2022

NMC polls: 3-member ward system likely to remain unchanged: Reports

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Nagpur: The three-member ward system and boundaries of the new wards publicized in February are likely to remain the same. The State Election Commission (SEC) has reportedly decided to continue with the old process of delimitation of wards and finalize it, according to reports.

The reports said that as per directives of the SEC, the Municipal Commissioner Radhakrishnan B and team of NMC Election Department on Monday visited the office of the Commission and reportedly replied to all the queries raised by it.

According to reports, the SEC had queries on draft for delimitation of wards submitted by a committee headed by Principal Secretary (Forests) B Venugopal Reddy and comprising Divisional Commissioner Prajakta Lavangare-Verma, Municipal Commissioner Radhakrishnan B and Collector R Vimala in first week of March.

The draft was prepared on the basis of a three-member ward system and boundaries of new wards publicized by the NMC between February 1 and 14. The SEC was supposed to finalize the draft in March. But the process was halted following the decision of the State Government to take powers of delimitation of wards. As per orders of the Supreme Court, the SEC has restarted the same process. Thus, it seems the three-member ward system and publicized boundaries of new wards will continue, sources said.

The Supreme Court, in its order dated May 4, had directed the SEC to notify the election programme within two weeks from the order in respect of such local bodies, including continuation of the process from the status as on March 10 on the basis of delimitation done prior to the Amendment Act came into force from March 11.

After taking powers of delimitation of wards from March 11, the State Government had set aside the lengthy process done by the NMC from August last year to March. The government had directed the NMC to start anew on April 11.

As per sources in NMC, the civic body did not initiate the process. Government did not change the ward system and also did not revise guidelines of delimitation of wards. Therefore, we had nothing to do, sources said.

As per routine process, elections were supposed to be held in February and installation of a new body before March 4. Due to inordinate delay, the administrator has been running the civic body since March 5.