J-K administration amends Panchayati Raj act

The Jammu and Kashmir administration has amended the Union Territory’s Panchayati Raj Act to incorporate reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC), an official spokesperson said on Thursday.

The amendments to the Jammu and Kashmir Panchayati Raj Act proposed by the administration led by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha aim at making the statute more effective by ensuring transparency in the functioning of the Panchayati Raj institutions (PRIs), constitutional alignment and consistency with the practices in other states where reservation has been provided to the OBC, apart from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), the spokesperson said.

He said the administrative council, which met here under the chairmanship of the LG, approved amending the Act to incorporate the definition of the OBC in it to ensure their reservation in these grassroots democratic institutions.

Earlier, the draft Jammu and Kashmir Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2023 was submitted to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). The observations of the MHA were examined and the necessary amendments were incorporated into the revised bill.

The amendment bill proposes the incorporation of the definition of the OBC for providing reservation to them, explaining the method of disqualification from the membership of a Halqa Panchayat and suspension and removal of a sarpanch, naib-sarpanch and panch by the government, the spokesperson said. He added that the bill also defines the process for removal and conditions of service of the state election commissioner (SEC) here.