Bhubaneswar: After notifying the three amended Panchayat Laws, the State Government has issued detailed guidelines for reservation of seats in the three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs).
Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Principal Secretary, Ashok Kumar Meena have issued the guidelines on Friday.
The guidelines are being issued for reservation of seats for Ward members, PS members, ZP members and reservation of offices of Sarpanch, PS Chairperson and ZP President in conformity with appropriate provisions under amended Odisha Grama Panchayat Act, 1964, Odisha Panchayat Samiti Act, 1959 and Odisha Zilla Parishad Act, 1991 and PESA Act, 1996.
In non-scheduled areas, the total reservation of seats in favour of SC, ST and BCC (backward class citizens) shall be kept within 50 per cent of the total seats and the reservation for BCC, which may vary, shall be kept within 27% of the total seats, as per the guidelines.
“Up to 27 per centum of total seats will be reserved in favour of Backward Class of Citizens (BCC) category and whenever necessary, the quantum of reservation for BCC shall be reduced to such extent as required to limit the total reservation of seats in favour of SC, ST and BCC taken together within 50% , without affecting the reservation provided to SC & ST so as to ensure that provisions on total reservation of seats,” it said.
Reservation of seats in the scheduled areas will be in proportion to the population of the communities in the Panchayat for whom reservation is sought. Provided that the reservation for the Scheduled Tribe shall not be less than 50 per cent the total numbers of ST.
The population percentage of SC and ST people in the respective GP/ Block/ District will be taken as per the 2011 Census.
While determining the reservation status of various seats/ offices of PRIs for General Election to the PRIs, 2022, the principle of rotation in descending order will be followed taking into account the reservation status of last PRI Elections held in 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017.
The guidelines says, after reservation of seats of SC, ST and BCC categories, reservation for women will be made after arranging the ward/ GP/ constituencies in Odia alphabetical order, in the manner as provided in Panchayat Laws so that the total reservation for women will not be less than one-half of the total seats/ offices.
While starting the process of reservation, first preference will be given to SC , then ST, BCC on third and 4th Women.
“While determining women reservation in each category, procedure of ‘1 and thereafter every second’ shall be followed so as to make total reservation for women not less than one-half of the total number of seats,” it says.
The State Government has also set different deadlines for completion of the reservation of the seats in PRIs. The draft reservation list for GPs will be published on October 8 while the last date for submission of claims is October 16 and the communication of the final list to the State Election Commission (SEC) is October 26.
For ZP, the last date for publication of reservation is October 8 while the last date for submission of claims is October 18 and the disposal of the claims is October 22.The State Government will approve the recommendations of Collectors on October 29 and the communication of the final list to the State Election Commission (SEC) is October 30.
For Zilla Parishad, the publication draft list is October 16 while the final list will be out by October 26. The Collectors will have to communicate the final list to the State Election Commission (SEC) byOctober 29. All Collectors will have to complete the hectic exercise by October, 2021.