New dists hint need for fresh delimitation

Of the 16 town panchayats originally with Vellore district, Tirupattur and Ranipet districts get three and nine respectively, leaving four town panchayats with the residual Vellore district.

Among development blocks, the new districts get seven blocks each while Vellore retains nine blocks. Similarly, of the original 743 village panchayats in erstwhile Vellore district, Tirupattur and Ranipet districts have been allocated 207 and 288 village panchayats, with Vellore retaining 248 village panchayats.

Similarly, Tirupattur, Ranipet and Vellore districts share the original 842 revenue villages as 195, 330 and 317 respectively. Of the 11 municipalities which were with Vellore district, four (Ambur, Tirupattur, Vaniyambadi and Jolarpet) have been attached to Tirupattur district while Ranipet gets five municipalities (Arcot, Sholingur, Arakkonam, Melvisharam and Ranipet), with Vellore retaining only two (Gudiyattam and Pernambut).

However, in both the Assembly and parliamentary constituencies, there is a lot of overlapping of such segments into other districts. Of Vellore’s original 13 Assembly segments, Tirupattur and Ranipet get five constituencies each while Vellore retains seven constituencies. Both Vellore and Tirupattur districts share the Ambur and Gudiyattam Assembly segments, while Vellore and Ranipet districts both have portions of the Arcot and Katpadi Assembly segments.

Among parliamentary constituencies, Tirupattur has portions of the Vellore and Tiruvannamalai Lok Sabha segments while Ranipet has only a portion of the Arakkonam segment with Vellore having portions of the Vellore and Arakkonam parliament constituencies.

A possible advantage for locals seems to be that the trifurcation has reduced the distance to the district headquarters. Earlier, Nellivasalnadu near Alangayam in Tirupattur taluk was 135 kilometres from the original Vellore district. After trifurcation, an hour’s travel will now enable locals to reach the district headquarters as Madanur village in Tirupattur district’s Ambur taluk is only 56 km from Tirupattur whereas in the case of Ranipet district, the farthest village is Anaicuttiputhur (Arakkonam taluk) which is 60 km from the district headquarters. After trifurcation, Sarakkal village in Pernambut taluk is 68 km from the district headquarters, Vellore.