The Hindu : Cabinet nod for delimitation panel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 20, 2002

National

National

Cabinet nod for delimitation panel

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 19. The way has been cleared for the long-awaited exercise of delimitation of the Parliamentary and Legislative Assembly constituencies in the country, with the Union Cabinet deciding to set up a Commission for the purpose. The Cabinet, which met here on Thursday night, has decided to introduce a Bill in Parliament in this regard soon.

The panel, which is being set up after a gap of 25 years, would seek to remove the disparities that have arisen in the size of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies because of the uneven growth of population. For instance, in the capital, the Outer Delhi Parliamentary constituency has an electorate of about 20 lakhs, the Chandni Chowk constituency has an electorate of just about five lakhs.

Announcing the decision, the Union Minister and Cabinet spokesperson, Pramod Mahajan, said that following the delimitation exercise, the number of Scheduled Castes reserved constituency was expected to go up by seven in Lok Sabha in the wake of increase in SCs population as recorded in the 2001 Census.

There would, however, be no change in the total number of seats in both Parliament and State Assemblies. Parliament has already passed a law freezing the total number of seats up to the year 2025 to ensure that the States which had done well in population stabilisation do not feel penalised by a reduction of their strength in the Lok Sabha.

Mr. Mahajan said that while no time limit would be set for the Delimitation Commission, the expectation was that it would complete its work in six to eight months, as all the necessary data would be available on the computer.

Asked about the suggestion of the Election Commission that it should be entrusted with the task of delimitation of constituencies, he said the EC had no role in it. "It can only be done by a Delimitation Commission appointed by a law passed by Parliament.''

The delimitation exercise comes ahead of the scheduled Lok Sabha election of 2004 and, if completed in time, the shape and size of the Lok Sabha and Assembly Constituencies should be quite different from what they are now.

The Cabinet also set its seal on the closure of the controversial Rs.1,000 crore-Sankhya Vahini project, which envisaged setting up of a high-speed data network through a joint venture company involving a U.S. university.

Mr. Mahajan said the Cabinet was informed that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology had decided to "close the case for the formation of Sankhya Vahini India Limited''.

The proposal to form the company was mooted two years ago. It was to be set up by the then Department of Telecom Services, IUNET, a subsidiary of Carnegic Mellon University, Pittsburgh, the Department of Electronics and some educational institutions in the country.

The project came under a cloud after the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and several organisations opposed it on the ground that it could lead to a security risk. The project, which aimed at expanding the bandwidth for easy access to Internet and promoting educational and research activities, had rocked Parliament for several days with various sections stiffly opposing the proposed project, alleging that there was lack of transparency in the deal and that the project had security implications for the country.

Subsequently, the IUNET pulled out and the joint venture was abandoned. On October 2001, V.S.Arunachalam, president of the IUNET, conveyed to the Government, the university's decision to withdraw from the ambitious project alleging red tapism.

The Cabinet also approved the proposal for direct flights from Chennai and Kochi to Kuwait. It approved the grant of the two cities as additional points of call to the designated airline of Kuwait.

It also approved Cairo as an additional "beyond point'' of call for the designated airlines of India. Consequently, there would soon be a change in route schedules.

Funds for elementary education

To ensure that the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) progresses as per schedule, the Union Cabinet decided that grants for this mission to universalise elementary education would be released directly to the State Implementation Societies instead of routing them through the State Government.

For the past couple of months, the Human Resource Development Ministry has been contemplating such a move for fear of cash-strapped States diverting the money meant for SSA elsewhere. In fact, direct transfer of funds to the State Implementation Societies had been the practice with the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP).

Despite the success of the DPEP model of funding, the Ministry decided to send SSA funds to State Governments in view of the preference for such an arrangement expressed by them. Though State Education Secretaries prefer the DPEP model as money can then be disbursed within days of it reaching the State Implementation Societies, the State Governments wanted to be the routing authority as such remittances boost their budget. Apparently, the HRD Ministry gave in to their plea as allocation for DPEP is not factored in into the Central allocation to States.

But with more and more States facing a financial crunch, the Ministry over the past year decided to revert back to the DPEP "path of funding'' to ensure that SSA is not derailed due to procedural delays.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National