Daria first among 13 villages to be merged with Chandigarh civic body

Daria village will be the first among 13 villages to be merged with Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC). The five-year term of panchayat in Daria village will come to an end on January 2. The next villages in line will be Dhanas, Kaimbwala and MauliJagran, whose five-year term of panchayat will end on January 4. Raipur Kalan will be the last village to be merged as its panchayat’s term will end on January 9. Recently, the UT administration had written to panchayats of 13 villages to provide a list of assets and liabilities. There are a total of 22 villages in Chandigarh, of which nine are under the MC limits. The remaining 13 villages are located within 8km radius of the city having population of over 50,000. The UT villages are governed under the Panchayati Raj system in which elections are held for the panchayat, panchayatsamiti and zilaparishad. The move of merging villages in MC was made in 2013 with an aim to bring uniformity in the development and governance of the villages. The UT administration had received around 600 objections and suggestions on the draft notification issued for the merger of 13 villages. Even PenduSangharsh Committee, which has representatives of 13 villages, had recently carried out protest march against UT’s move. The UT committee had considered all objections and suggestions and held a number of meetings on this issue. In November, the high-powered committee constituted under the chairmanship of UT home secretary Arun Kumar Gupta had recommended merger of 13 villages under jurisdiction of UT administration to Chandigarh MC. The committee had submitted its report to the UT administrator VP Singh Badnore for issuing final order. Thereafter the notification for merger of villages was issued on November 30, 2018. The Congress party was against UT's move to merge these villages in MC. Congress leaders including former Union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, former city mayor Subhash Chawla had also filed their objections to the Chandigarh administration. Both leaders had termed the move as arbitrary and one taken without the consultation with the stakeholders. They had also submitted that the move will abolish the entire rural area of the city. On the other side, local BJP leadership was in favour of merger of these villages. The BJP leaders had even met Union home minister Rajnath Singh and other senior ministers in Delhi to push for the merger of villages. The 13 villages to be merged under MC are Kishangarh, MauliJagran, Daria, Raipur Kalan, MakhanMajra, Behlana, Raipur Khurd, Dhanas, Sarangpur, KhudaAlisher, KhudaJassu, KhudaLahora and Kaimbwala.