Seven new wards proposed for Shimla Municipal Corporation

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Shimla, February 10

The district administration has proposed to increase the number of wards in the Shimla Municipal Corporation (MC) to 41 from the existing 34 wards. As per the draft proposal released by the district administration here today for delimitation of wards for the upcoming civic body elections, seven new wards have been recommended — namely Shankali, Lower Krishna Nagar, Dhingudhar, Kasumpti-2, Brockhurst, Lower Vikas Nagar and Lower Khalini.

As per the directions of the state Election Commission, the residents can file objections on the draft proposal till February 17 before the DC, who in turn will dispose of the objections by February 24. The final orders on delimitation of the wards will be issued by the Deputy Commissioner on or before March 9.

“The division of Krishna Nagar, Vikas Nagar and Khalini wards into two is on the expected lines. These wards are quite big and breaking them into two is logical,” an official said. As for other wards, Shankali has been largely carved out of Ruldu Bhatta ward and partially from Bharari ward.

Meanwhile, the Congress MC councillors sounded a little disappointed with the draft proposal. “One, there was no need to increase the number of wards as no new area has been merged into the MC. Two, a cursory look at the delimitation proposal reveals that the BJP stands to benefit from it in the elections,” said Congress councillor Divakar Sharma.

Interestingly, no new area from the adjacent panchayats has been merged into the MC. The Urban Development Department had started identifying certain areas and had even invited objections from the residents of the chosen areas, but the plan was dropped as people could not reach consensus.