ISLAMABAD, Jan 22: National Reconstruction Bureau on Tuesday announced the provincewise break-up of the National Assembly seats, which have been increased from 237 to 350.

The most significant change in the election process is the introduction of 25 special seats for technocrats and abolition of 10 seats reserved for the minorities.

The introduction of technocrats seats and imposition of minimum qualification of graduation for the candidates was reportedly described by the NRB chief as the move to enhance the quality of the lower house of the parliament.

The announcement was made by the chairman of NRB, Tanvir Hussain Naqvi, at a press conference, restricted only for the official media following a meeting presided over by President Gen Pervez Musharraf. A chart copy of, which was made available to Dawn by a public relation officer showed that general seats have been increased from 207 to 265.

The general seats of Punjab have been increased from 115 to 147, Sindh from 46 to 59, NWFP from 26 to 32, Balochistan from 11 to 14 and FATA from 8 to 12.

However, the NRB did not make any increase in a single general assembly seat of Islamabad capital territory.

The three-fold increase made in the women special seats have been distributed among the provinces with Punjab getting an increase from 11 to 33, Sindh 5 to 15, NWFP three to nine and Balochistan one to three.

Out of the 25 technocrats seats, 15 have been allocated to Punjab, six to Sindh, three to NWFP and one to Balochistan.

The women as well as the seats allocated for technocrats will be filled through elections on the basis of proportional representation system and the system of indirect elections have been totally done away with.