KARACHI, Aug 9: The Election Commission has started printing ballot papers in the first phase of local body elections to be held on Aug 18. The ballot papers are in five colours for the five categories for which votes will be cast. The white ballot paper is for the candidates contesting for Muslim (General) seats, pink for Muslim (women), light green for peasants/workers, yellow for peasants/workers (women),and light blue for Nazim/Naib Nazim and Brown for minority seats.

The EC officials said along with the printing of the ballot paper, its distribution has also been started.

The ballot papers are being delivered to district returning officers in bags of the same colours for their quick identification.

The 11 districts of Sindh where elections would be held in the first phase- on Aug 18 are: Karachi City, Thatta, Tando Allahyar, Ghotki, Naushero Feroze, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Mirpurkhas, Umarkot, Sanghar and Tharparkar. In all the 11 districts, over 25,000 candidates are in the field.

According to the EC, in Karachi, polling will be held to elect 2,223 members, including 178 panels of Nazim and Naib Nazim of 178 Union Councils as 81 members have returned uncontested. However, as no Nazim/Naib Nazim panel has returned uncontested, polling will be held for all 178 joint seats.

The Karachi City is spread over West, Central, South, East and Malir zones, known as districts, having 42, 42, 27, 46 and 21 UCs, respectively.

The ROs, according to EC sources, have appointed 3,728 presiding officers, 42,519 assistant presiding officers and 14,173 polling officers, while in the last elections of 2001, their strength was 3,499, 23,320, 12,659 and 39,478, respectively.

According to updated electoral rolls, the total strength of voters in Karachi city district is over 4.63 million which is 0.2 million more than the 2001 local bodies elections.

According to zone-wise break-up of the updated list, the total number of voters in the West is 969437, including 387791 women voters, in Central 1212783 including 551890 women, in South 679714, including 291974 women, in East 1251588 including 551757 women and in Malir 520597 voters, including 213269 women voters.

The town-wise detail of voters is: Keamari Town 180653 voters, Site 201700, Baldia 188086, Orangi 330386, Gadap 148261, North Nazimabad 265621, New Karachi 360403, Gulberg 250676, Liaquatabad 336083, Gulshan-i-Iqbal 335481, Jamshed 351192, Malir 209060, Landhi 326055, Korangi 233270, Shah Faisal 181226, Bin Qasim 170900, Lyari 266432 and Saddar Town 298634.