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| Panchayat polls not on Coalition agenda | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Feb 29
Despite making several announcements and laying stress on building Panchayati Raj institutions in the state the congress led coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir is yet to finalise the schedule of the polls to bring back governance to the grass root level.
More than three years have passed when over 1300 Panchayat committees where dissolved by the state government to fulfil its commitment of holding Panchayat polls in the state.
Previous elections were held in 2001 after a gap of 23 years and due to security reasons elections could not take place in at least 1400 Panchayats. Taking a plea that all the Panchayats are not having elected representatives the govt had dissolved the elected bodies.
At that time the opposition National Conference had criticised the decision of the satte government on the plea that instead of completing the Panchayat election process the ruling coalition had dissolved the elected bodies without allowing them to complete a five-year term. The then Minister for Panchayati Raj,Peerzada Mohd.Syed,had
said in 2004 that while the election to the Panchayati Raj institutions in Jammu and Kashmir regions would be held in January-February 2005 that in Ladakh was to be
held in June 2005. This commitment has not been fulfilled so far.
After the 2001 the Government had transferred 15 departments to the Rural Development Department in 2003 which had allowed an opportunity to Panchayat
committees to have control over maintenance,operation and supervision of primary schools,medical subcentres,sheep and veterinary extension centres and horticulture and agriculture extension services and Anganwari centres.The opposition leaders,including BJP President Mr Ashok Khajuria and leader of Panthers Party in the Assembly,Mr Harsh Dev Singh,said here today that the delay in holding elections to the Panchayati Raj institutions had defeated the programme of granting functional and financial autonomy to the Panchayats.They said that the Government has also failed in constituting block development councils and district planning boards resulting in the grounding of
Panchayati Raj. Ajay Sadhotra,said that since there was no provision in the constitution for dissolving elected Panchayats the ruling coalition took extreme step by securing an
ordinance from the Governor in 2004 under which the elected bodies were dissolved. They said this practice should not be repeated any more and favoured holding of Panchayat elections as early as possible. Government circles said that elections for the Panchayats would be held at an appropriate time so that added efforts were made for transferring functions,functionaries and finances in respect of different core departments to the Panchayats so as to allow them to gain greater autonomy.
These circles said that since the Assembly poll was round the corner the schedule for holding the Panchayat elections could be fixed only after the new Assembly was constituted. This indicated that election to the Panchayati Raj institutions may be held somewhere in 2009.
Harsh Dev Singh said that there was need for either reducing the term of the Assembly from six to five years or for increasing the tenure of the elected Panchayats
from five to six years. |
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