New Delhi, April 19
With a view to removing the imbalances in the size of various Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies the government has approved the introduction of a Bill to set up a delimitation commission.

This will be the first delimitation commission that will be set up in the past 30 years. The last time such a commission was set up to remove disparities was in 1972, which finished its work in 1978. Since then there have been demands, including from the Election Commission of India, for a fresh review.

The Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee last night, gave the nod for the introduction of the Delimitation Bill, 2002, which would seek to set up the commission to carry out the mandate of the Constitution.

The number of Lok Sabha seats will remain the same as a cap has been put through a constitutional amendment, but the size of the constituencies will be restructured so that every parliamentary constituency in each state has an equal number of Assembly segments.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan, while briefing newspersons, said the commission would also refix the number of constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Following delimitation it was expected that the number of constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes would go up to seven, he added.

Mr Mahajan said normally after every Census a delimitation exercise was carried out, but due to certain reasons there has not been one for the past 30 years.

He said the Bill would be introduced in the current session of Parliament and once the commission was set up through an Act, it was hoped that it would give its report within six to eight months since all data was now on computers.

The minister said Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes reserved constituencies had been decided on the basis of population. While the Scheduled Tribe population was more or less static there would not be any increase, but Scheduled Caste reserved seats could increase by seven and once delimitation was over their reserved seats might also be shifted.