Pune civic body starts marking of electoral roll as per wards

PUNE: The civic body has started the basic preparations for division of the electoral roll in accordance with the ward boundaries.
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Monday uploaded the maps of all 58 wards on its website. “Since the state commission has provided the final draft of maps of all wards, we are beginning with the basic markings on the electoral rolls,” an official from the PMC’s election department said on Wednesday after a meeting held to discuss the poll preparations.

“This will reduce the delays and help the administration avoid errors while finalizing the voters’ list,” the official said, adding all deputy commissioners and ward officers attended the meeting.
Yeshwant Mane, head of the PMC’s election department, said, “We discussed in detail the division of electoral roll, setting up of returning officers’ officers and the estimated requirement of polling booths. We will seek preliminary feedback on these issues from stakeholders concerned in the next few days. We will review the feedback and chalk out our next course of action. ”
Another senior PMC official said, “Twenty-three villages that were merged in the PMC limits last year are going to the civic polls for the first time. We will have to give more attention to the newly merged areas, especially in terms of preparing the voters’ list and setting up booths. ”
He said, “We have told the ward officers to identify the locations to set up offices of the returning officers. During the last civic polls, one returning officer was appointed for three wards. We are studying how the system can be worked out for the coming polls”.
The state election commission has declared the final maps of 58 wards with three members and one ward with two members. Around 4,000 booths would be needed across the city to ensure fast polling. The official said the numbers might go up due to the inclusion of the new areas in the civic limits.
The state election commission and the PMC have also announced 23 wards that would be reserved for the Scheduled Caste (SC) and two wards for the Scheduled Tribe (ST) categories. A PMC official said the state election commission was yet to announce the schedule of a lottery to reserve the seats for women. Of the total 173 members, 87 seats will be reserved for women.