Pune civic body to soon submit draft delimitation report to Maharashtra govt

Once the process is completed, the draft delimitation map will be submitted to the Maharashtra government, which will forward it to the State Election Commission (SEC), said an officer with the department on Wednesday.

The State Election Commission, after the delimitation process, would decide the schedule of polls in consultation with the state government.

In May, SEC had asked the secretaries of the Urban Development Department and the Rural Development Department to wrap up the ward formation process in Maharashtra within a month to 40 days.

Though the delimitation is based on the 2011 census, it has been necessitated due to the expansion of civic boundaries with the merger of 23 villages in the last few years.

“The draft report of the delimitation process to fix the boundaries for the electoral ward is almost complete. The PMC is strictly following the timeline set by the state government for conducting the delimitation process. We have started the preparation for the civic polls and are collecting staff data, which would have to be pressed into service during the election period,” said the officer.

According to the Maharashtra government notification issued last month, the municipal corporations have to prepare the draft delimitation report by July 31 so as to be submitted to the state government by August 5.

The government will then forward the report to SEC by August 11.

PMC officials said that the civic body will publish the draft delimitation report by August 22 for the public to air their opinions until August 28. The civic body will complete the public hearing regarding the suggestions or objections by September 8 and will send the final report to the government by September 15. After the approval of the State Election Commission, the PMC will publish the final delimitation report in the gazette by October 6.

Earlier, the state government had issued a notification of the delimitation process, with municipal corporations directly sending the draft to SEC. But it later amended the notification, making municipal corporations first send the draft delimitation report to the state government. However, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Nationalist Congress Party (SP) alleged that the ruling alliance was interfering in the civic body polls to ensure that the delimitation would be in their favour.

The state government started the delimitation process following the Supreme Court order to initiate the election process for civic body polls due to prolonged delay. The political parties are speculating that the civic elections will be held in December.

The Supreme Court in May had asked the government to complete the election process for civic bodies in four months, but also allowed them to seek an extension if needed.

Out of the total municipal corporations, Pune and Nagpur are in A class; Thane, Nasik, and Pimpri-Chinchwad are in B class, while Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, and Kalyan-Dombivli are in C class. Rest 19 Municipal corporations are in D class.

In A, B, and C corporations, municipal commissioners are authorised to undertake the ward formation exercise. In the case of D class, district collectors are the authorities.