By reducing the total number of wards under the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to 225, the state government caught everyone off guard on Friday. The recently delineated 243 wards are now history, and the new gazette notification is poised to repeat the process of redrawing the ward boundaries for the second time in the previous two years.
The announcement refers to Section 7 of the BBMP Act 2020, which gives the government the authority to change how many ward boundaries there are.
The delimitation committee, led by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath, is anticipated to begin a new process of delimiting wards based on the Census 2011 based on government order. The number of wards, which increased in the outer wards during the previous delimitation process, will almost certainly decrease to match the 225 figures.
The delimitation committee, which the state government established on July 22, gave a preliminary report to the Urban Development Department (UDD) last week. In the lack of specific instructions from the government, the committee maintained the overall number of BBMP wards at 243. Given that the government is under pressure to finish the entire process within the next two months, it is anticipated that the notification on Friday will leave some uncertainty over the number of wards.
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According to the appeal of the state administration led by Congress, the High Court had granted a period of twelve weeks on June 20 for ward delimitation to be repeated.
Image Source: Bangalore Mirror
The government postponed new elections after the last elected council’s term ended in September 2020, citing the need to draft an exclusive Act for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike limit. The new Act proposed bringing the total number of wards up to 250. The 198 wards were increased by 45 by the prior delimitation committee.
In July of last year, the state administration notified 243 wards. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has not opened new ward offices or added staff due to the delay in the BBMP elections.
