With elections to the urban local bodies (ULBs) expected after April this year, the Odisha government on Friday finalised seat reservation for the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) and Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC).
As per the notification issued by the Odisha Housing and Urban Development Department, the Mayor’s office in Berhampur and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporations has been reserved for women candidates. However, the post is unreserved in Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC).
“In pursuance of sub-section (4) of section 14 of the Odisha Municipal Corporation Act, 2003, the State Government hereby reserved the offices of the Mayor of the Municipal Corporations,” read the notification.
Earlier, the department had issued draft notification on the reservation of Mayor posts in the three urban civic bodies and invited objections and suggestions from all within a period of fifteen days from the date of publication of the notice.
Apart from finalising the reservation for mayoral posts, the State government has also completed ward delimitation and reservation of seats for the Municipal Corporations.
While the area of the BMC has been divided into 67 wards, CMC has been divided into 59 wards and there will be 42 wards in BeMC. There will be 38 reserved wards in BMC, 33 in CMC and 23 in BeMC.
It is pertinent to mention here that the civic bodies have been running without public representatives since 2018 after the tenure of the last elected Corporators and Councillors ended.
The State government cleared the decks for the elections after a gap of three years in October this year.
(Edited by Ramakant Biswas)