Merger of panchayat with Jawali Nagar Parishad draws flak

Up in arms against the proposal of merging the Keharian gram panchayat in the proposed Jawali Nagar Parishad in Kangra district, residents of the area led by local block development committee (BDC) member Rajneshwar Singh and panchayat up-pradhan Govardhan Singh, lodged their protest on premises of the Mini Secretariat in Jawali on Thursday afternoon.

Residents also submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu through the local Revenue Department authorities. They demanded their panchayat should not be merged with the nagar parishad and the recent notification issued by the state Urban Development Department must be revoked. Copies of the memorandum were also submitted to the panchayati raj minister and the Kangra Deputy Commissioner.

Residents pleaded that as many as 450 families were residing in the panchayat of which most were underprivileged. They pleaded that earlier too, the panchayat was merged into Jawali Nagar Panchayat when it was upgraded from gram panchayat in 2015. “After the BJP government came into power in December 2019 we raised the demand for restoring gram panchayat status of Keharian panchayat before the then local MLA Arjun Singh Thakur. The then government restored the panchayat’s status after merging only two wards of the panchayat into Jawali Nagar Panchayat,” said BDC member Rajneshwar Singh. He said the present Congress government had again issued a notification for merging Keharian panchayat into the Jawali Nagar Parishad.

The state government had issued notification for upgrading Jawali Nagar Panchayat to Nagar Parishad last month. In Jawali Nagar Panchayat there were nine wards. After upgrading to Nagar Parishad there would be 11 wards in Jawali. Keharian and Dann gram panchayats are being merged into the Jawali Nagar Parishad. A lot of resentment is brewing among residents of these panchayats for relocating them to the nagar parishad.