PANAJI
A total of 1,491 wards will go to polls in June this year with a marked addition of 19 new wards to the 1,472 wards listed in 2012.
The process of delimitation and reservation of wards began towards the end of November 2016 and is set to conclude on April 27with the gazette notification slated to be published by May 2 to 3.
Elections will be held in 186 panchayats, with the exclusion of Allorna, Chandel-Hassapur, Harvale, Casarwarnem and Taleigao. The five year-term of these panchayats concludes on May 27.
Director of Panchayats Sandhya Kamat informed that the process of delimitation and reservation of wards is nearing conclusion and that the Block Development Officers posted across the state will submit their report to the DoP by April 27. “These 19 new wards have been added to 16 panchayats. Calculations were carried out with the 2011 census as the base,” she stated.
Till Tuesday, reports were submitted for 160 panchayats.
Each BDO is expected to consider corrections of the flaws detected in 2012 delimitation, ensure continuity and pay close attention to the population fabric while undertaking ward formation.
Reservation of wards will be notified shortly after May 3 as per the percentage of population of each reserved category. The Constitution mandates reservation of 33 per cent of the total seats for women. In addition to this, seats are also reserved for the three other categories based on population.
“As per 2011 census, population of Scheduled Tribe stands at 12 per cent, Other Backward Classes at 27 per cent and of the Scheduled Castes stands at 1.67 per cent. Wards will be reserved in consonance with these figures,” DoP Kamat assured
n Constitution mandates reservation of 33 per cent of the total seats for women
n Seats are reserved for the other three categories based on population
2011 CENSUS
n Population of Scheduled Tribe stands at 12 per cent
n Other Backward Classes at 27 per cent
n Scheduled Castes stands at 1.67 per cent
n Wards will be reserved in consonance with these figures
