Upgrade of Nagrota Surian to nagar panchayat opposed

In order to oppose the state government’s decision to relocate office of the Block Development Officer (BDO) to Jawali and to seek denotification of the government’s notification for upgrading Nagrota Surian gram panchayat to a nagar panchayat, the residents of Nagrota Surian and its three surrounding gram panchayats have formed a Sangarsh Samiti named ‘Nagar Panchayat Hatao-Vikas Khund Bachao’.

The residents of Nagrota Surian, Bassa, Katholi and Sugnara gram panchayats convened a meeting under the leadership of Dheerj Atri, vice chairman of local Block Development Committee (BDC) and appointed Sanjay Mahajan, ex-pradhan of Nagrota Surian gram panchayat as convener of the samiti. The samiti also nominated 25 active members to spearhead an agitation in support of its demand.

The samiti in its maiden meeting decided to file a civil writ petition in the high court for revocation of notification issued by the Urban Development Department on November 23 in which Nagrota Surian had been upgraded to nagar panchayat by merging four gram panchayats.

Sanjay Mahajan, convener of the samiti, said a petition was being filed this week. He said around 70 per cent residents of these panchayats were poor and were MGNREGA workers, labourers and small farmers. He said the samiti had given eight days’ ultimatum to the state government for revocation of this notification and stop the process of shifting office of the Block Development Officer (BDO) from Nagrota Surian to Jawali.

The samiti claimed that the office of the BDO had been established at Nagrota Surian in 1972 and another office in Jawali sub division had been notified during the previous BJP regime for Jawali which had been de-notified by the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government after coming to power in December 2022.

The samiti also decided to start a chain hunger strike and protest demonstration against the government after expiry of the ultimatum period given to the government against notification for upgrading Nagrota Surian nagar panchayat and proposal to shift BDO office from here to Jawali.

samiti members also alleged that the state government had planned a political conspiracy against the people of Nagrota Surian region in the Jawali Assembly constituency being represented in the Assembly by Agriculture Minister Chander Kumar. Its convener Mahajan said that residents of this region would fight against the alleged political conspiracy of the government tooth and nail and would not allow it to enforce its dictatorial decisions on the people of the area.

He lamented that earlier too the government had relocated 10 gram panchayats of Nagrota Surian development block to Dehra block.

He suggested that the government should re-notify the notification issued by the previous state government for opening a new BDO office at Jawali.