Kolkata A 10-member Central Delimitation Committee (CDC) has been formed by Kolkata Municipal Corporation to create 56 additional civic wards, increasing the total from 144 to 200, officials said.The committee, tasked with ensuring a balanced distribution of voters across the 200 wards, has to submit its recommendations by July 27. The KMC elections are due in Dec.The July 10 order issued by KMC administrator Smita Pandey states that the CDC “shall scrutinise Ward Boundaries” and propose a “revision of the areas of Wards towards creation of 200 Municipal Wards within the prescribed time limit”.The civic body was put under an administrator after Trinamool’s rout in the recent assembly polls led to Firhad Hakim’s resignation from the post of mayor.The last delimitation — which was undertaken before 2010, when Left Front was in office both in the state and KMC — saw the number of wards increase to 141. In 2012, when both the civic board and the state govt were run by Trinamool, three more wards were added following the merger of Joka 1 and Joka 2 panchayats with KMC.Civic officials said that while population growth across north Kolkata has been negative or low over the past decade, the southern parts have seen a significant rise, mostly driven by new residential complexes, commercial development and urbanisation along EM Bypass.“As a result, the number of wards may reduce in the north, but increase in the south,” said an official. “The increase in south Kolkata will mostly be along the Bypass.”According to the 2011 Census, Ward 108, which covers the Anandapur-Chowbaga belt along EM Bypass, was the city’s most populous ward, with a population of 64,777. At the other end of the spectrum, some wards had fewer than 10,000 residents, including Ward 22, which covers the Posta area in north Kolkata.The delimitation aims to rearrange the wards in such a way that each has an average of 20,000 to 25,000 voters and 25 to 30 booths, an official said. “The purpose is to ensure that the wards are evenly balanced in terms of voters and population,” he said.The CDC, chaired by special municipal commissioner Soumya Bhattacharyya, will prepare its recommendations based on surveys by borough delimitation committees and verification of the notional boundaries of the proposed wards.Members of the borough committees will collect, verify and compile data on the boundaries of the existing and proposed wards.Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari had on June 15 announced that KMC elections would be held after delimitation of wards and a new civic board would be in place by Dec 7.
