In the absence of elected representatives to the Jammu and Kashmir legislature and local bodies to represent them, villagers are raising concerns about delays in administrative work. The term of panchayats in J&K ended on January 9 and fresh elections have not been announced yet, making District Development Councils the sole tier of elected governance in the Union Territory at present.

A day after the tenure of the panchayats ended, the Centre appointed Block Development Officers (BDOs) as administrators to run the panchayat halqas under their jurisdiction for six months. Officials of the Rural Development Department will now undertake work under centrally sponsored schemes till fresh elections are announced.

The Indian Express spoke to several former sarpanches who said work had been put on standby. They said the panchayats had been performing efficiently and “should have been allowed to continue”. Some said that panchayat elections should be conducted at the earliest since it “gave the rural population a stake in their development”.

Sarpanches in J&K get Rs 23.3 lakh annually for implementing centrally sponsored schemes. They work with different line departments to prioritise halqa-level works and work on rural infrastructure.

Qayoom Mir, the sarpanch of the Pohu village in Pulwama district of south Kashmir, said a lot of work was happening by utilising these funds. “We prioritised works in flood control in our area that had been pending for a long time. We also put new transformers in place,” he said, adding that “even now, people come to his residence with their issues”.

The 50-year-old said, “If there were no panchayats over the last five years, people would have been on the roads.”

In Galbuk village of north Kashmir, sarpanch Ajaz Ahmad Mir who was elected in the bypolls of 2020 said he had spent a crore on developmental work over the last three years. “There is a vacuum on the ground. Although officials will work now that our tenure is over, I feel that officials will not know the issues of every village and every area the way we do,” he said.

According to Mir, the block officials appointed will not be able to “match the knowledge of a sarpanch about his local panchayat”. He added, “Officials work in larger areas and have several villages under them. The way I am available to my people, they cannot afford the same attention.”

Sheikh Suhail, the sarpanch of Payer village in south Kashmir, said he used to prioritise works on irrigation canals in his area and ensured full utilisation of funds. “We also made a PHC in our panchayat halqa because that was a long-standing demand in this area,” he said, adding, “Having elected representatives brings accountability within the system. Officials have many responsibilities and the people need representatives that can take charge like we did.”

Not just panchayats, the term of urban local bodies, including two municipal corporations, 19 municipal councils and 57 municipal committees, have also ended. The term of the urban bodies ended on November 14 last year. According to sources in the government, elections to urban local bodies and panchayats are unlikely before the Lok Sabha elections although the J&K Administrative Council had, on December 28, amended the J&K Panchayati Raj Act that allows Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation in urban and rural local bodies.

However, two issues that come in the way of holding local body and panchayat elections immediately, according to government sources, are the identification of municipal constituencies to be reserved and the transfer of mandate to conduct the municipal electoral processes to the State Election Commission from the Chief Electoral Officer, per constitutional provisions.

“The State Election Commission could not have extended OBC reservation to J&K since there was no such provision. Therefore, there was a constitutional issue in conducting these polls,” a senior official told The Indian Express. With the passage of the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment Bill), 2023 in the Winter Session of Parliament, “the OBC reservation can now be provided for elections in J&K”, the source explained. Further, elections to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly need not be held along with the Lok Sabha polls, sources said, citing the Supreme Court deadline of September 2024 for the same while delivering its judgment on the constitutional validity of the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019. The last Assembly elections in J&K, were held in 2014.