Odisha govt braces for Corp polls in Sambalpur, Rourkela

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jan 16:

The Odisha government has started an exercise to conduct elections to the Sambalpur and Rourkela Municipal Corporations by April 2015.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development of the state government issued a notification yesterday to finalize the boundaries of the Sambalpur Municipal Corporation based on the complaints received so far to its previous notification dated Nov 15 2014. The boundary identification has alreday been completed for Rourkela Municipal Corporation.

Feedback has been requested against the notification for Sambalpur and Rourkela Municipal Corporations over the next 10 days. A final hearing would be held after 10 days and a fresh notification issued.

The Municipal Director will then officially notify the Election Commissioner to initiate the election process by the first week of next month following which the voter list will be finalized.

Earlier, the government had targeted to issue the final notifications for elections of both Municipal Corporations by January 20.

As per the new notification issued yesterday, the Sambalpur Municipal Corporation will be divided in 41 wards.

Four wards out of this will be reserved for candidates of Schedules Caste (SC) and five more will be reserved for female candidates of the same group. While six wards will be reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs), three of these wards will be reserved for women. Out of the 12 wards reserved for Other Backward Caste (OBC) candidates, six will be reserved for female OBC candidates.

Also, seven more wards will be reserved for female candidates while seven will be kept free for candidates of general category. Overall, 21 seats out of 41 will be reserved for female candidates.