Chandigarh, Dec 7 (IANS): Voting for 13,276 panchayats in Punjab will take place on December 30. The votes will be counted and the results known the same day, state Election Commissioner Jagpal Singh Sandhu announced here on Friday.

With the announcement, the 'Model Code of Conduct' has come into force in the state, Sandhu said.

He said the process for filing the nominations would commence on December 15.

Sandhu said 13,276 Sarpanchs and 83,831 Panches would be elected for the 13,276 panchayats. Of this, 17,811 seats are for Scheduled Caste, 12,634 for Scheduled Caste Women, 22,690 for general category women, 4,381 for Backward Classes and 26,315 seats are for general category.

Sandhu said there were 1,27,87,395 (over 1.27 crore) registered voters in the state.

The expenditure limit for a candidate contesting for the post of Sarpanch has been fixed at Rs 30,000 where the limit for those contesting for post of Panch is Rs 20,000.