LUCKNOW: : An exodus of over 60 lakh people from state’s rural heartland to urban centres over a five-year span has forced a reduction in number of seats for zila panchayat members, kshetriya panchayat members and gram pradhans since the last in 2015.
Additional chief secretary (panchayati raj) Manoj Kumar Singh said, rural population has shrunk by 60.69 lakh in five years with many villagers migrating to urban areas. “In 2015, the rural population in poll records was pegged at 15.8 crore. This has shrunk to 15.2 crore in 2021. This has triggered a dip in number of seats with a corresponding reduction in reserved seats too,” he said.
In the new panchayat poll formula, the list of reserved seats for zila panchayat presidents includes Lucknow, which has been reserved for Scheduled Caste woman, while neighbouring Kanpur Nagar has been categorised as an SC seat. Prominent among 27 of 75 zila seats, which remain unreserved include Aligarh, Agra, Mathura, Prayagraj, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Ayodhya, Bijnor, Rampur, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar and Unnao.
On Thursday, Panchayati Raj department had released its policy for reservation, stating seats reserved in 2015 will be opened for the general category this year or will be reserved for a separate category. Also, seats which were never reserved will be reserved this year. Of 826 posts under kshetriya panchayat, five are reserved for Scheduled Tribe, 171 are reserved for SC of which 86 are for women and 223 for OBC of which 97 are for women. After delimitation, there are 58,194 gram panchayat seats. Of these, 20,368 are unreserved while 330 are for ST, 12,045 for SC and 15,712 for OBC. Of these, total reserved seats for women are 9,739.
Elaborating on redrawing of seats due to a shrinking rural population, additional chief secretary (panchayati raj) Manoj Kumar Singh said, even as there would be no reduction in number of zila panchayat president seats since number of districts is fixed at 75, seats for members have reduced by 69 as total wards have come down. Seats for kshetriya panchayat pramukhs have gone up by five to a total of 826, but number of members have dipped by 1,946.
Similarly, posts for gram panchayat pradhans have also come down by 880 since 2015, while posts for members of gram panchayats have reduced by 12,745.