I ----------------------------~ No. 6789/46-H, ~~ITAT!()N ADVISORY DOl>Il\IITTEE. ·. SiCRETARIAT. Bombay, !.9th October 1950. Fr~m ' The CHAIRlliAN and im~InERS of the Delimitation Ad~sbry Committee; Bombay; To .. The SECRETARY, Election Commission, India. Subject :-Recomn;e~>rlaiions oj the Bombay Deli,;iitatio;t Advisory . · C01mmttee l'egarrlin,q tl>e delimitation' of ctmstituencies of the liouse of the P:ople and the State Legislature, .Sir, · We have the honour to<forwat·<.! het·ewith our recommendations regarding the delimit~tion of constituencie:>·wr (1) the House of the People, (2) the Boru,bay State Legislative Assembly and (3) the Bombay State Legislative Council. · 2. The Committee were assisted in their labotU's by the ~aterial . supplied by the State Government and the various suggestions received · fl'Om the members of the public. 3. · The procedure followed prior to the formulation of <>Ur final views was briefly as follows: The statistics and material required for the preparation of the detailed scheme of constituencies was first prepared by the Collectors of the Districts concerned. On receipt of the reports from the Collectors, the tentative scheme formulated by the State Govermnent w~s published in the Official Gazette and copies were kept for inspection at all District and Taluka Head9uarters. In ~rde~ that public opinion might have the fullest opportumty of expressmg ttself, copies of the State Government proposals were als? kept on sal~ at a nomiri.al price of two nnnns. A number of suggestwns were rece1ved in response to this, All these represen~ations received from the members of the public were carefully cons1derecl by t-he Committee before formulating their final proposals . 4. It will thu& be seen that the reconnnendations of the .Committee contained in the statements attached to this letter are the outcome of deliberation discussion and labour extending over a long period. Both officials as ,~·ell as the ll)embers of the public had ample opportunity of ex}iressing their views on the s.ubject. 'l'he ~ecommendations of the Committee are concisely stated m the succeeding paragraphs. jl~ lfo 14-1 2 I. HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE. o. General l'rinc•j,lcs,-FQI"ty-uve "c~t~ hqvc vccn _allott~d iu ~be 'nouf!~ nt' t.IH! 'P~opl!:! t.n t.hi!'t Si,nt.c. .A grottp of 7 Con~~·ltti1JtH~1e~ or th~ State Legislative Assembly forms 11 constituency of tl1e House of tl1e People. In framing the constituencies for the House of tl~e Pc~plc, the · Committee has taken care to see that the limits of populatwn laid down in article 81 (b) of the Constitution have been strictly adhered to. In View of this constitutional provision, it has not been possibl~ to maintain the territorial integrity of a District. However, contiguity, size of each proposed· constituency, its physical features, means of transport available within it, administrative feasibility, possibilitie~ of contact between candidates and voters, etc. have been taken mto account in forming the constituencies. The seats r~served for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes have been distributed· on the basis of their population in each District. Four seats each have been reserved in the House of the· People for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled "rribes in this State. The Committee has allotted these seats to the ~on~tituenci~s in which their concentration is the largest. A statement showing the distribution of the 45 seats allotted to Bombay State in the House of the People and 315 seats in the State Legislative Assembly is appended to this letter. The reserved seats for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are also indicated. · II. STATE LEGISLATIVE ASSEl\IBLY. 6. Three hundred and fifteen seats have been allotted to the State Legislative Assembly. Out of these 315 seats, ·29 seats are to be reserved seats for the Sched•Iled Tribes and 27 for the Scheduled Castes. In for;_ning the constituen~ies. for the State Legislative Assembly, the. Curru~uttee has tne~ to distribute t~e seats as equitably as possible, that IS to say,. the size of each constituency has been kept unifonn ·as far as possible acco~ding to local c_ircums:ances. Special endcavr.ur has been made to keep m~act the ad:nmistrat1ve units of Taluka and 1\iahal. A departure fr,.ru th1R r•.ue has been made where owing to the e . h b . • xcess f th ul t Juk o e pop a wn., 1t as not een possible to adhere to tho T ,1 l\1.\hal unit. In such cases, the requisite number of villages have ~ or taken a~ay and innluded in the adjoining constituency. Apart from ~h~ pop•1htwn, other f.,ct.ors, ~uch .as, ;ueans ,,_f con~munication, gerg,aphical . features and n:I.tural barners hke mountams, nvers runnin" in betwe etc. _have . been taken into consideration while de'limi ting ;h.; const1tuenmes. 7. As observed in pMeg,ap~ 6 above, there are 29 and 27 scats reserved for the Schedul.,d Tnbes and Scheduled Castes resp t' 1 One possible way <fall.- cation of the rerervcd scats is th~t of ecllvt~Y· constituenCies... m wh'hh •c t e num b er r. f Scheduled Castes and s seecmgh d 1 d Tribes is the la,gest in order of munber, but in doing so it woulJ h:t u c ~hat a particular District like Sholapur for instance with a tot~f~~ i3 scats would get as many as 9rescrved scats for the Seheduled Cnstes: wllrn ~~~ 11 mnHrr vf f~rt, th~ tutal num\Jl'f of i'lrhrrlulrrl ra•to vuttrij in Sh•,ln.tltlt' Diflt.rict. is t.•t1.ly 1 102,mH uut. t•f 0,93,091 tutnl \'otcta. It will · tlwrefore be seen that a distribution according to DiHtricts is more equitable, as Scheduled Castes are murc or less evenly scattered throughout the State. With a view to distributing the reserved seat• as equitably as possible throBghout the State, the c~mmittee decided to allot the rese-rved seats on the basis of the Districtwise population of t.he Scheduled Tribes and Schedulecl Castes. III. STATE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. 8. In all there are 72 seats in the State Legislative Council. : Out of these 72 seats, - (i) 24 m_embers are to be elected by the m.em,bers of the State Legislative Assembly ; (ii) 12 n1ernbers are to be uom.inated by the Governor; (iii) -24 members are to . be elected by the members of the .Municipalities, District Local Boards and Cantonment Boards; (iv) 6 members are to be electecl by persons who have been at least three years graduates of a University in India or have been for at least _t)lree years in possession of qualification prescribed by or under any law ·made by Parliament as equivalent to that of a graduate . of a University; (v) 6 members are to be -elected by persons who have been for at least three years engaged in te·aching in such educational institutions within the State, nut lower in . standard than that of a secondary school, as may be prescribed by or uncler any law made by Parliament. _ 9. There is no question of forming constituencies for (i) and (ii) in ·paragraph 8 above. As regards (iii), the following factors were taken into account by the Co=ittee in distributing the 24 seats among the various local authorities in this State. Though the electorate is to 'consist of the members of these b9dies, we thought that it would not. be an equitable distribution if the 2•1 seats were allocated on the basis of the respective member strength of each local authority. For, there is no uniformity or definite principle on which the number of members has · been fixed. · It varies from place to place according to the exigencies of local conditions. A Municipality with a revenue of Rs. 9, 700 only has lO members, while the Municipal Corporation of Bombay with a revenue of nearly Rs. 8 crores has 135 members. Similarly, if revenue figures are taken as the basis, many smaller Municipalities would get ho representation at all. For the same reasons, more or less; the Colllnlittee .did not adopt population alone us the basis. In the .:ircuuistances,. we ·thought that it would be appropriate to take i~to consideration all the three factors mentioned above for the purpose of allocating 24 seats to different local authorities in the State. In accordance with this basis thC 24 AnatR hR.ve hPen di,..t.t·ihu.tcd nM Mlwwn iu Annexure. A to thi~ letter• . 10. Gr<td·uates' Um<&titue;wy.-The Uonnuittee understands that ~til and unless Parliament has prescribed the qualiiicution as equivalent to that of a graduate of a University, the State Govcrntnent will not be in a position ~o prepare the electoral roll_for. the gra~uates' constituency. The Comm1ttee has, however, after takrng rnto consideration all available data decided to allocate the 6 seats in the graduates' constituency as follows:- Bombay City 2 seats. Ahmedabad and Poona Uities l seat (by rotation). Northern Division 1 seat. Central Division l seat. Southern Division 1 seat.· 11. TeachersJ Gonstituency.-For the sa111e rea~ons n1entioned in paragraph 10 above, tbe State Gov,ermnen_t lms·not been able to prepare an electoraL roll for the 'feachers Constituency. The Committee h decided to allocate the six seats in the Teachers' Constituency on t~s 6 0 ame lines as in the Graduates' Constituency, that is to say, - Bombay City 2 seats. Ahmedabad and Poona Cities · l seat (by rotation).