Creation of over 1500 administrative units
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 20: Notwithstanding the demand from all the quarters regarding implementation of the recommendations of Mushtaq Ahmed Ganai-headed committee, huge financial implications vis-à-vis infrastructure and human resource may become stumbling block in the creation of new administrative units like Niabats, Tehsils, Sub-Divisions and Patwar Halqas in the State.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that Mushtaq Ahmed Ganai-headed panel, which submitted its report to the Government in the month of July last year, has recommended creation of around 70 Niabats, 50 Tehsils, 20 Sub-Divisions and around 1400 Patwar Halqas across the State and the Revenue Department, as directed by the State Cabinet, is in the final stage of working out human resource and infrastructure requirement along with financial implications involved in the implementation of the recommendations.
“Though the exact figures about the financial implications are likely to be worked out by the Revenue Department with another 15-20 days yet as per the exercise carried out by the Department so far the financial involvement would run in thousands of crores of rupees”, sources said.
“Since financially the State is not in the pink of health, the financial implications may become stumbling block in the creation of new administration units”, they said, adding “if the State Government cannot provide adequate infrastructure and manpower to the existing administrative units how it would be able to implement the recommendations of the panel is a million dollar question”.
It is pertinent to mention here that at present there are 257 Niabats, 82 Territorial and 35 Agrarian Tehsils, 20 Sub-Divisions and around 3000 Patwari Halqas and large number of these administrative units are still without adequate manpower and infrastructure and this issue was raised by several MLAs during the Budget Session of State Legislature.
In response to a question, they said, “at present nothing can be said about the time-frame for placing the issue before the State Cabinet as besides working out financial and manpower implications, the Revenue Department is also required to examine in greater details certain issues relating to the Tehsils and Niabats, which were created for the purpose of settlement operations and agrarian reforms”.
“In the report, there is overlapping of boundaries of newly proposed Tehsils and Niabats with those already existing and this issue has to be carefully examined before placing the matter before the State Cabinet”, they said, adding “without settlement of this issue no step can be initiated towards implementation of the recommendations of panel”.
“Keeping in view the grave issue of financial implications, no time-frame can be fixed for the creation of new administrative units as proposed by the panel and people would have to wait for unspecified time-frame to get their demands implemented”, they said.
The process of ascertaining the demands of people for new administrative units was actually started in 2007 when the Government had constituted a committee headed by former Chief Secretary of the State, Dr S S Bloeria. However, the report of the committee was termed as ‘inconclusive’ in 2009 and in January 2010, the committee was revived with Mushtaq Ahmad Ganai as its head and Varinder Kumar Gupta, Mumtaz Afzal, Abdul Aziz and S R Kapur as its members.
The committee submitted its report to the Government on July 14, 2011 following which the Chief Minister directed the Revenue Department to prepare a note after detailed examination of the recommendations for discussion and final decision in the Cabinet.
When the note was placed before the Cabinet in January this year it was decided to seek more details from the Revenue Department for taking holistic view of the entire issue in one go.
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