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MCD wards to be increased

Staff Reporter

Bill passed in House; to cost an additional Rs. 120 crores

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Assembly on Monday passed the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2007, that seeks to increase the total number of seats in the Corporation to at least 272 with the maximum limit being 300. With this, the expenditure of Rs. 90 lakh per year on payment of allowances and provision of various facilities to the municipal councillors is expected to double, costing the Exchequer an additional Rs. 120 crores.

The Bill was passed by voice vote on the second and final day of the Special Session amid strong protests by the BJP legislators who termed it a tactic by the ruling Congress to delay the upcoming MCD elections and walked out of the House.

On behalf of the BJP, former Minister Harsharan Singh Balli initiated the discussion. Two amendments were moved by Sahib Singh Chauhan of the BJP and Ramvir Singh Bidhuri of the Nationalist Congress Party.

The Amendment Bill had been introduced in the House by Urban Development Minister A.K. Walia on the first day of the Special Session on Saturday and had been supported by Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely. In the statement of objectives and reasons of the Bill, Dr. Walia had stated that sub-section (6) of section 3 of the DMC Act 1957 (as amended in 1993) provided that upon the completion of each census after the establishment of the Corporation, the number of seats shall be fixed on the basis of the population of Delhi as ascertained at the census and shall be determined by the Central Government.

Stating that since the first proviso to Sub-section (6) provides that the total number of seats shall in no case be more that 134 and this ceiling was fixed in 1993, Dr. Walia said consequent to the increase in the population of the Corporation area from 90.25 lakh in 1991 to 133.63 lakh in 2001, there is a case for an increase in the number of seats in the Corporation.

As per sub-section (1) of the Act, for the purpose of election of Councillor, Delhi shall be divided into single-member wards in such manner that the population of each ward, as far as practicable, will be the same throughout Delhi. On this basis, the average population of each of the existing 134 wards, which was 67,000 based on the 1991 Census, comes to about 100,000 as per the 2001 Census.

Since the average population of a ward in the MCD at one lakh is very high compared to the average population of a ward in other comparable municipalities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, Dr. Walia said the size of a ward was accordingly proposed to be fixed at around 50,000.

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