Himachal: Criticism of merger of Panchayat in Jawali Municipal Council

Himachal Pradesh: People of the area, led by local Block Development Committee (BDC) member Rajneshwar Singh and Panchayat Uppradhan Goverdhan Singh, registered their protest at the Mini Secretariat complex in Jawali on Thursday afternoon against the proposal to merge Kehriyan Gram Panchayat into the proposed Jawali Municipal Council in Kangra district. The residents also submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu through local revenue department officials. They demanded that their panchayat should not be merged into the Municipal Council and the recent notification issued by the state urban development department be revoked. Copies of the memorandum were also submitted to the Panchayati Raj Minister and Deputy Commissioner of Kangra.

Local residents argued that more than 450 families live in the panchayat, most of whom are underprivileged. They argued that earlier also the panchayat was merged with Jawali Nagar Panchayat when it was upgraded from Gram Panchayat in 2015. BDC member Rajneshwar Singh said, ‘After the BJP government came to power in December 2019, we had raised the demand to restore the status of gram panchayat to Kehriyan Panchayat before the then local MLA Arjun Singh Thakur. The then government had restored the status of the panchayat by merging only two wards of the panchayat into Jawali Nagar Panchayat.’

He said that the present Congress government has issued a notification to merge Kehriyan Panchayat again into Jawali Municipal Council. The state government had issued a notification last month to upgrade Jawali Nagar Panchayat to Nagar Parishad. Jawali Nagar Panchayat had nine wards. After being upgraded to Nagar Parishad, Jawali will have 11 wards. Kehriyan and Dann Gram Panchayats are being merged into Jawali Municipal Council. There is a lot of resentment among the residents of these panchayats regarding their transfer to the Nagar Parishad.