Dodoma — The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has so far received 78 applications for division of parliamentary constituencies.

The State Minister in the Prime Minister's Office responsible for Policy, Coordination and Parliamentary Affairs, Phillip Marmo said NEC would assess every application to ensure the respective constituencies meets the laid down criteria.

However, he said NEC would officially announce the new criteria for dividing constituencies after it had conducted an evaluation.

Mr Marmo mentioned among the criteria are population size, available communication infrastructure and constituent economic conditions.

"NEC has already begun conducting a survey in various countries on criteria in dividing electoral constituencies," said Marmo.

NEC conducted the last exercise of dividing electoral parliamentary constituencies in the country in 1995.

Marmo admitted that there are differences in population size existing within constituencies as some of them have not more than 10,000 people while others have more than 700,000 people.

Hence, he said NEC has still have a challenge to carefully evaluate applications for dividing parliamentary constituencies in line the size of the parliament and the country's economic growth.

He was responding to questions posed by by Mbinga East MP, Gaudansi kayombo, Iramba West MP, JUma Kilimbah and Special Seats MP Engineer Stella Manyanya questions.

The MPs had challenged the government to divide several constituencies before the 2010 elections to enable social services and development activities be taken close to the people.