Though Government taking a pride in holding elections for all the three tiers of panchayats but it is now itself caught in a controversy over the empowerment of block development councils (BDCs) and district development councils (DDCs) as the Jammu & Kashmir Panchayat Conference has threatened a stir if government denied equal empowerment to all the three tiers of panchayats. The assurance of Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to a representative team of district development councils (DDCs) over their demands on status, pay and perks has so much irked and angered the members of two lower tiers of panchayats that the J&K Panchayat Conference has threatened a stir over demand for equal empowerment of two other tiers of panchayats also. The demands and counter demands for empowerment of BDCs (Block Development Councils’) and DDCs’ ( District Development Councils’) has changed the issue of panchayat empowerment into a battle of political ego. The issue has become so contentious that bringing members of DDCs’ and BDCs’ closer to an agreement over their empowerment is slowly and steadily changing into a major challenge for the Lt Governor. Keeping in view the anger and resentment of the J&K Panchayat Conference over equal empowerment of members of all the three tiers of panchayats, the issue if dragged on for many more days and weeks may not be finally resolved without the intervention of the Home Minister and Prime Minister of the country. In fact the government should have issued a proper notification on the empowerment of all the three tiers of panchayats before holding elections for Block Development Councils’(BDCs) and District Development Councils (DDCs) the two upper tiers of panchayats but since the government carried out election exercise for all the three tiers of panchayats in haste, the confrontation between the upper two tiers of panchayats over their empowerment has brought the government at the centre of this controversy.
The empowerment of panchayat bodies even if settled between BDCs and DDCs could become the flash point of many controversies, conflicts and contradictions in the years to come.
By all standards of understandabilities the working BDCs and DDCs the upper two tiers of panchatats may head for more difficulties than the working of a coalition government in coming months and years. By all standards of understandabilities the empowerment of panchayats has finally changed into a clash of interests and as such reaching a workable agreement with both the members of Panchayat Conference and as well as the representative body of district development councils (DDC) over the empowerment is the only option for the government to avoid a confrontation with the members of even a single tier of panchayats. The empowerment of panchayat bodies even if settled between BDCs and DDCs could become the flash point of many controversies , conflicts and contradictions in the years to come.
