City to have 5,800 polling booths for local body elections

“During the meeting, the Commissioner had directed us to prepare a ward-wise electoral list. Conducting special camps to add new voters also was discussed in the meeting,” a zonal officer, who took part in the meeting said.

As per the state Election Commission, one polling booth should be set up for 1,400 voters. “Following the orders, 200 wards in the civic body would have around 5,800 polling booths in the 15 zones of the civic body,” the official added.

During the Lok Sabha election held in May, the civic body had set up as many as 3,754 polling booths in Chennai district, which comprises only 7 zones.

The development has come after G Prakash issued a notification to provide a reservation of 105 divisions for women. Of the total 200 wards, 89 wards have been reserved for women belonging to general category and 16 wards have been allocated for women belonging to scheduled castes.

Recently, technicians from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) had conducted a training session to teach the civic officials in segregating ward-wise electoral rolls. Of the total 200 divisions, the civic body had changed as many as 119 divisions during the recent delimitation drive and changed division numbers. During the delimitation drive, the civic body also changed boundaries of Manali and Madhavaram zones. “Due to these changes, we have to prepare new ward wise voters’ list and locations of polling booths,” the official explained.

The state government has told the Madras High Court that it would notify the holding of local body election in August.