‘Rethink inclusion of panchayat in Shimla Municipal Corporation’

Shimla, March 11

Expressing displeasure over the recent decision of the state Cabinet to include areas of Beolia under the Shimla Municipal Corporation, residents of Pujarli panchayat have urged the state government to give it a rethink.

A delegation of villagers led by Himachal Kisan Sabha president Kuldeep Tanwar met Shimla Deputy Commissioner Anupam Kashyap and submitted a memorandum of their demands to the DC.

Tanwar said there were several people, including senior officials living in the panchayat, who had purchased land under the provisions of Section 118 of The Himachal Pradesh Tendency and Land Reforms Act, 1972. He alleged the decision to include the panchayat wards in the SMC has been taken under the influence and pressure of these people.

The villagers said the decision was against the public sentiment as the residents of the Gram Panchayat and poor people living here would be burdened with taxes in future. Besides their traditional and ancestral rights would also be destroyed, they added.

Tanwar said people living on the boundaries of SMC, panchayats of the area and the villagers would launch a mass movement if the decision was not revoked.