Una’s panchayat members left in limbo as govt upgrades MC

The elected members of the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in the 14 panchayats of Una district, which have been included in the newly constituted Una Municipal Corporation, are suddenly without charge they held for the last four years, though officially they have one more year left in the office.

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Fourteen panchayats adjoining Una were recently been included in the Una Municipal Council to upgrade it to the status of Municipal Corporation. These panchayats include Jhalera, Rainsari, Kotla Khurd, Ajnoli, Kotla Kalan Lower, Kotla Kalan Upper, Lalsingi, Arniala Upper, Arniala Lower, Malahat, Tabba, Rampur, Kuthar Khurd and Kuthar Kalan.

Consequently, 118 elected PRI members, including 90 panchayat ward members, 14 pradhans and 14 up pradhans, are confused regarding their present status since the panchayats have been included in the urban area. Elections to both rural and urban local bodies are scheduled to be held in December, leaving at least a 10-month gap, posing leadership issues to residents, besides governance and decision-making concerns in the panchayats and development works.

Una Additional Deputy Commissioner Mahender Pal Gurjar, who has taken over the charge of the Commissioner of the newly constituted Una Municipal Corporation, told The Tribune that the 14 panchayats concerned stood dissolved, while the panchayat secretaries, who were government employees, would continue to serve as the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in their respective areas.

Gurjar said the Panchayats Secretaries had been directed to spend all funds allotted to them previously by the Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Department at the earliest, adding that new funds for development of merged areas had yet to be received from the Urban Development Department. He, however, said the task immediately ahead of him was to identify and demarcate urban wards out of the merged rural areas and prepare ward-wise voter lists for the upcoming local bodies elections.

Meanwhile, Una MLA Satpal Singh Satti today blamed the state government for creating confusion in the state where urban areas were being expanded. He said residents of all 14 panchayats adjoining Una had opposed the government’s move to include them in the urban area, adding that there would be no development funds for these areas during the next year.

Satti questioned the hurry to dissolve the panchayats a year ahead of the elections, while the urban bodies had also been upgraded only on paper. He said he talked to the bureaucrats concerned, who too did not have any proper solutions or ideas into the issue. He said he would personally meet residents of the 14 affected panchayats and take up the issue with the Urban Development and Panchayati Raj Minister.