Jammu, October 04: The experiment of development councils in the state has been restricted to Ladkah division only notwithstanding the fact that similar demands have been coming in from other places also seeking individual development of the respective areas.
The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) for Leh or Kargil did not come over night but was the culmination of a long process of agitations and demands from the respective areas seeking attention of the powers that be to allow them to develop their respective areas according to their own needs.
The creation of first ever development council in Leh was a landmark decision paving way for elections to the autonomous body to look after its designated area followed by similar body for Kargil.
Now the question arises have these development councils really been able to serve the purpose of developing the respective areas or have these been just a platform to some more politically ambitious people to occupy the chairs.
The experiment of LAHDC at Leh in particularly seems a success as far as the empowerment of the local people is concerned even though most of the people form Leh lament that the councils have been mostly dominated by Congress people who have not been able to focus their attention on full scale development despite the fact that they were in the ruling government of the state.
However in the forthcoming elections people have tremendous enthusiasm as they feel that now with Narendra Modi government at centre any party that comes to power in the LAHDC Leh can extract maximum benefit if they can elect the right candidates as Modi government has a singular focus of all-round development irrespective of the party affiliations.
The murmurs in the Leh however are again shifting their focus towards their long pending demand of full-fledged union territory status as they believe that it was the only viable solution to resolve the discrimination with this hill state.
According to observers the current elections in the Leh are directed towards this sentiment and the result that may come after the elections would decide what course the demand takes.
The political observers however feel that the experimentation of the Hill development councils has been a half success as the finances and other necessary issues are controlled by the state government and the district administration which hampers the full scale development of the area.
The people of Leh now feel that their old demand of Union territory status was the only viable solution to their problems as they would then be directly governed by the central government with vast resources of the centre at their disposal.
The observers also believe that entire Ladakh was now a fit case for union territory status if at all the government at the centre wants to resolve the miseries of the Ladakhis and their domination by Kashmiri political class.
They believe that granting Union territory status was over due to the so far neglected area adding had the Development council experiment succeeded fully Ladakh would have been a model division for the rest of the country and the state government would have adopted the same experiment with demands of other areas like Chenab Valley Development Council, Rajouri and Poonch councils, Kashmiri Pandit Development Council and Regional councils for Jammu and Kashmir.
They feel that state government was not experimenting with the idea solely because of political reasons and hence to begin with union territory for Ladakh can be a good experiment.