Date:06/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/06/stories/2008030657160100.htm

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Cantonment elections on May 18

Election schedule will be discussed at a special meeting on Friday
There are 1, 51,790 voters now as against 1.93 lakh in last elections

HYDERABAD: Polls for the eight civilian wards of the Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) will be held on May 18 as per the election notification issued by the Defence Ministry few days ago for all Cantonment Boards across the country.

Only Mhow Cantonment would be exempt from the notification because of a court case.

Confirming the notification, SCB’s Chief Executive Officer V. Premchand said on Wednesday that the detailed election schedule on conducting the polls would be discussed at a special Board meeting on Friday.

Delimitation

SCB has already gone for fresh delimitation of wards and had reserved wards one, five and six for women through a draw of lots while the eighth ward is for Scheduled Castes.

The number of electors in the area too showed a considerable decline after revision of electoral rolls.

There are only 1, 51,790 voters now after a cleaning out process while there were 1, 93,000 voters when elections were held last time.

Each ward has more or less uniform electoral strength between 18,000 and 20,000 with only ward two having 22,092 voters. Mr. Premchand indicated a short notice will once again be issued for submitting claims and objections for the electoral lists for a three day period when the poll process begins.

SCB maintains a separate electoral rolls list besides the one prepared under the Election Commission’s guidelines.

Elections were last held for the erstwhile seven civilian wards in August last year after a gap of nine years.

They were annulled four months later when the new Cantonment Act 2006 came into vogue.

Record tenders

SCB is in for a windfall in the form of Octroi and Toll tax collections for the next financial year going by the tenders opened by the CEO. Both collections could rise by Rs. 9 crore compared to last year when the combined revenue was about Rs. 11 crore.

All four parties that submitted the bids for Octroi had quoted above Rs. 7.27 crore of last year with the highest figure of Rs. 12.2 crore by one, E. Rajagopal Reddy. Though there is persistent demand from political parties and the local populace to abolish them, both taxes are a major source of revenue to the Board.