Jammu, Jan 4: The much awaited elections to the Urban Local Bodies (ULB) in Jammu and Kashmir could be further delayed as the State Election Department is still waiting the direction of the government to start delimitation process in the 93 ULBs including newly approved 17 municipal committees across the state.
 Sources said that delimitation is essential before the elections to elect the Urban Local Bodies, but the government was yet to communicate its approval to the state election department to start the crucial process
  “Till there is nod from the government, we cannot start the process for the delimitation, which means further delay in the conduct of elections”, said an Election Department official on condition of anonymity.
 Government has announced to conduct the elections for the Urban and Local bodies in May this year.
 Officials said that due to the non-conduct of polls to elect new bodies whose term ended in May 2010, central government has withheld crores of rupees under various urban development schemes for the infrastructural development to be implemented through Municipal Corporations and Municipal Committees.
 The Local Bodies elections are due in state for past more than one and a half year and so far government had made several announcements to conduct the polls. Earlier the government has set October-November 2011 as deadline for holding the civic polls.
 As per the provisions of Local Bodies Act, State Cabinet has to finalise the deadline for completion of election, which is to be formally announced later by the Housing and Urban Development Department, responsible for holding elections to the Urban Local Bodies including two Municipal Corporations, six Municipal Councils and the  Municipal Committees.
 “Delimitation process, in all the 93 urban bodies could not be started mainly because government is slow and seems to be only making cosmetic assurances”, said an official.  He said that it is only after the delimitation process is completed that the Election Department can undertake revision of electoral rolls of all ULBs.
 Election to the ULBs were held in Jammu and Kashmir after span of 23 years in January 2005 and at that time there were 14.5 lakh voters for 76 ULBs.
 Later in 2011, 17 new Municipal Committees were announced by the state government. “Since past six years thousands of new voters have been added to the state but they cannot exercise their right to vote in absence of their inclusion in the voter list”, sources said

Lastupdate on : Wed, 4 Jan 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
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