Meetings to give nod to start shortly
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Apr 18: The Government has given major weightage to the MLAs in finalization of district Capex (Capital Expenditure) Plans as they are now only elected representatives after the District Development Councils (DDCs) too ceased to exist in February this year while the Block Development Councils (BDCs), Panchayats and Municipalities have already been rendered non-functional due to no elections.
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The plans of Panchayats will also be finalized in consultations with the concerned MLAs, official sources told the Excelsior.
The District Development Commissioners (DDCs) have started working on the District Capex Plans and they will be finalized at the meetings scheduled to begin by the end of this month or start of next month. The meetings are likely to be chaired by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who holds charge of Finance, Planning, Development & Monitoring Departments.
“The DDCs have been clearly told that the District Capital Expenditure and Panchayat Plans should be finalized in consultations with the concerned MLAs,” the sources said.
The District Capex used to be finalized by the District Development Councils (DDCs) will last financial year of 2025-26. However, the DDCs completed their five-year term on February 24 this year and now the district plans are being readied by the DCs in consultations with the MLAs. The plans are likely to be approved in the meetings to be chaired by the Chief Minister.
Prior to the DDCs, which came into effect from February 2021, there used to be District Development Boards headed by the Chief Minister and Ministers till 2018 when the last PDP-BJP Government collapsed resulting into the Central rule.
While the DDCs finalized district Capex on their own, it was only in 2025-26 that the MLAs became part of the plans after Assembly elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir in September-October , 2024.
The Panchayats, Municipalities and BDCs too completed their term from October 2023 to January 2024.
Elections were not held to any of the three Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) after they ceased to exist. And, there appears to be no immediate chances of the elections being held in near future though the State Election Commission (SEC) has started process for revision of electoral rolls of Panchayats.
The SEC is mandated to hold elections to Panchayats, Municipalities, Block Development Councils (BDCs) and District Development Councils (DDCs). However, post of the State Election Commissioner remained vacant for about 10 months till Shantmanu was appointed as the SEC in February this year.
After the Central Government granted reservation to OBCs, a Commission headed by Justice (Retd) Janak Raj Kotwal was set up to determine percentage of reservation for the OBCs in Panchayats, Municipalities, BDCs and DDCs. The Commission submitted its report on February 27, 2025 but no decision has so far been taken by the Government on its recommendations.
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