Islamabad - The Election Commission of Pakistan is working on the delimitation of constituencies for upcoming general elections to the National Assembly and provincial assemblies, ECP officials said on Friday.

The ECP officials were giving a briefing to the NA Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, which met under the chair of Dr Shezra Mansab Ali Khan.

The provisional results of the 6th population census 2017 published by the federal government will be used for the delimitation, they said.

A fraction of more than 0.5 shall be ignored and the ECP could deviate from this principle in exceptional cases for reasons to be recorded, they said.

The officials further told the committee about the determination of quota, timeline of delimitation and quota per seat in national and provincial assemblies.

It was further informed that the Supreme Court on the direction of the Council of Common of Interest carried the population and housing census-2017 and the process was completed on May 24, 2017.

The ECP is in touch with the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to remove the errors and mistakes in blocks and maps for delimitation of constituencies. This process to approve provided maps and blocks to the ECP may take some more months to finalize delimitation of constituencies.

The PBS had provided the required census data to the ECP around two weeks back. The PBS had provided census maps of urban and rural blocks and census results, which is currently being examined. 

The country was divided into 163,541 blocks to conduct the 6th census. Meanwhile, the secretary Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs briefed the committee about a comprehensive report, implementation status of the previous recommendations of the committee.  He said that the ministry has complied with the directions of the committee and also sent letters to the departments concerned for implementation.

The committee also unanimously deferred a bill “The Elections (Amendment) Act, 2017” moved by MNA Naeema Kishwer Khan.

The meeting was also attended by MNAs Sardar Ashiq Hussain Gopang, Rasheed Ahmad Khan, Nadeem Abbas Rabaira, Ch Salman Haneef Khan,  Shazia Mubashar, Arifa Khalid Parvez, Dr Shazia Sobia and Nafeesa Inayatullah Khan Khattak.