To curb quota misuse in panchayat polls, govt to amend rules

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 19

To eliminate chances of any manipulation in deciding the reservation of panchayats for women and Scheduled Castes (SCs), the forthcoming panchayat elections will be held on the basis of district-wise population data.

To do the same, the state government is bringing an amendment to the rules under the Punjab Panchayati Raj Act. A favourable opinion has already been sought from the Legal Remembrancer (LR), it is learnt.

During the previous SAD-BJP regime, the reservation rosters to decide the wards reserved for women and SCs were prepared block-wise, allowing creeping of discrepancies in reserving the wards.

Rural Development and Panchayats Minister Trip Rajinder Bajwa said the matter was under consideration.

While amending the Panchayati Raj Act in 2008, a discrepancy in rules resulted in the BDOs using block-wise population data to decide upon the reservation roster. Otherwise, Section 12 of the Act mandates use of district-wise data for determining population-based reservation roster for women and Scheduled Castes.

Since the state Cabinet in June last year had increased reservation for women in urban local bodies and Panchayati Raj institutions from 33 per cent to 50 per cent, it will take some time before the exercise to decide on wards and posts to be reserved for women and Scheduled Castes while keeping in mind the political needs of the MLAs.

While the elections to the Zila Parishads and Block Samitis are to be held by September, the elections to the panchayats are to be held by October.