25 zila panchayat chiefs’ posts reserved for women

LUCKNOW: The posts of zila panchayat chairpersons in 25 out of Uttar Pradesh’s 75 districts have been reserved for women, including Scheduled Caste (SC) women in six districts, additional chief secretary (panchayati raj) Manoj Kumar Singh said at a press conference here on Friday.

Lucknow is among the six districts where the posts have been reserved for SC women.

The state government on Friday issued the order allotting the seats of zila panchayat chairpersons to various categories in accordance with the rotation-based quota policy announced a day earlier on Thursday in the run-up to the three-tier panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh.

This will be followed by the reservation of posts of kshetra panchayat chiefs and village pradhans at the district-level.

The additional chief secretary (panchayati raj) said the posts had been reserved for women considering the Constitutional provision that mandated not less than 33% of the posts being

reserved for them.

“A total 16 seats have been reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), including six for women,” he said. Twenty of the posts were reserved for other backward classes (OBCs), including seven for women, and 27 seats were put in the unreserved category, including 12 for women, he added. According to director (panchayati raj) Kinjal Singh, the list of allotment of posts as per the reservation policy will be published by the district magistrates concerned between March 2 and 4 with people having the time to register their objections from March 4 to 8.

The final list will be prepared between March 10 and 12 while disposing of objections, if any.

The Allahabad high court has already directed the state government to complete the reservation exercise by March 17 and hold the village panchayat elections by April 30.

After the village panchayat polls, the state election commission will hold the elections for the posts of 826 kshetra panchayat heads and 75 zila panchayat chiefs.