Civic body poll: Delimitation survey still incomplete in Amritsar

Charanjit Singh Teja

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Amritsar, September 16

The survey being conducted by the MC staff is still incomplete and reportedly contrary to the results of the census report of 2011. As the term of the incumbent Municipal Corporation (MC) team would end on January 25 next year, the election process should start at least four months prior to that. The Municipal Corporation (MC) started the process of delimitation of wards in mid-June this year, but it is still incomplete.

However, it was not announced officially, but MC staff completed the survey a few days ago.

The untrained staff have been deputed on survey duty. They must have missed some streets and localities. The Local Bodies Dept should conduct the elections as per the previous delimitation of wards. Mahesh Khanna, Senior Councillor, MC

As per the final report, the MC surveyed 8.13 lakh residents in the city, which is 3.18 lakh less than the census report of 2011. Similarly, the MC teams visited 165,006 houses to date, but the number of households in the city was 227,140 in 2011. The MC teams have not visited 62,134 houses yet.

Besides, the number of scheduled caste (SC) population has also decreased. This questions the functioning of MC staff.

Mahesh Khanna, senior councillor of the MC, said, “The untrained staff have been deputed on survey duty. It is a technical job to follow the map of blocks and wards. They must have missed some streets and localities. Now, there is not much time to rectify the errors. The Local Bodies Department should conduct the elections as per the previous delimitation of wards.”

The MC had prepared a detailed map of the city and divided the area under the MC’s jurisdiction into 7,000 blocks. A total of 300 employees were deployed under 10 different sectors. Each sector is headed by senior officers. Initially, MC officials had claimed to complete the survey within 10 days, but even after three months, it is still incomplete.

MC officials on survey duty stated that some professional firm should be hired for the survey. “The survey is still in progress. The final report would be released soon. Senior officials are working on it,” said a junior officer of the MC working on the delimitation survey.

Despite repeated attempts, Joint Commissioner Hardeep Singh, who is heading the survey, could not be contacted.