Thiruvananthapuram: The delimitation of wards in 1,137 out of the 1,200 local bodies in Kerala would be completed by May 2025 based on the census figures of 2011 and the guidelines in this regard are expected to be approved at a meeting of the State Delimitation Commission scheduled on September 24.

According to officials, 55 panchayats and eight municipalities have been excluded from the exercise as their wards were finalised based on the 2011 census or a proportionate increase in population had not taken place in these areas.

Election Commission Chairman A Shajahan, who also heads the Delimitation Commission, will hold a meeting of District Collectors and top district-level officials in the Local Self-Government Department to issue instructions regarding the delimitation process, the officials said. Subsequently, panchayat and municipality secretaries will prepare a draft of the wards to be redefined. This process is expected to last over a month, the officials added.

Responses and complaints regarding the draft would be submitted by the Collectors to the Delimitation Commission, which would then appoint district-level officers to conduct field visits and hear the grievances, before issuing the final notification.

In the initial phase, division of wards in grama panchayats, municipalities and City Corporations would take place. Later, boundaries of blocks would be decided based on grama panchayat wards and district panchayats based on blocks. The final step would be the preparation of a new voters’ list based on the delimited wards.

New boundaries of wards would be decided by dividing the population of a local body as per 2011 census figures by the number of houses in 2024. For instance, if the population of a panchayat is 50,000 and there are 100 houses in the area, each ward will have around 500 houses. Roads, canals, rivers or government institutions could serve as boundaries of wards.

The state government has already issued notifications to create 1,712 new wards – 1,577 in three-tier panchayats and 135 in municipalities and City Corporations - taking the total number of local body wards in Kerala from 21,900 to 23,612.