New serial numbers, codes for all civic wards

Alphabetical code added to identify wards easily

The delimitation of 272 existing municipal wards ahead of next year’s civic elections would introduce a new ward numbering and code scheme. All three civic agencies will get their own set of ward with serial number starting from 1. At present, ward numbered between 1 and 272 are haphazardly distributed among the three corporations.

With the new numbering scheme, the North Corporation wards will be 1 to 104 and the serial number of wards in South Corporation will be  to 104 and in East Corporation the serial numbers shall change to 1 to 64.

“To help easy identification of the wards and their respective civic agency, the State Election Commission has added an alphabetical code after the number. For instance, all wards in the North Corporation will have an ‘N’ after their serial number,” said an official.

Wards in South Corporation will have an ‘S’ after their serial number and those in East Corporation will have an ‘E’ after their serial number, he said. The current delimitation exercise is different from the trifurcation of the MCD in 2012. The serial numbers can be changed only during delimitation, according to State Election Commissioner Rakesh Mehta.

The proposal for the delimitation of the civic wards was prepared by the Urban Development department and sent to  Lieutenat Governor Najeeb Jung for approval last year.

Jung holds the power for permitting delimitation of wards in Delhi. The power was delegated by the central government to the LG under provisions of Section 3 and 5 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957.

Mehta wrote to the LG and Chief Secretary K K Sharma for a nod to launch the process for redrawing the boundaries of municipal wards – a  mandatory exercise after every 10 years.

The delimitation committee comprised of municipal secretary as its member and five legislators and five councillors as its associate members. A task force surveyed all the 272 municipal wards with the help of geospatial data and followed the follow the 2011 census data to finalise the boundaries.

For the delimitation process, the State Election Commission also sought funds to the tune of Rs 30 lakh to carry out the delimitation process which aims to remove disparities among wards in terms of population. The exercise tried to ensure each ward had a population of about 50,000-60,000 wards, as far as possible. 

The 2011 census data showed, the population Kashmere Gate ward is just 15,288 while Hastsal municipal ward is 1,45,715. Similarly, Holambi Kalan in North-West has 42,392 residents while Saadatpur Musalman has 11,019. At present, there are 272 municipal wards of three municipal bodies. There were only 100 wards in Delhi in 1991.