SRINAGAR: A day after the J&K administration announced their status and fixed their honorarium, the newly elected district development council (DDC) members boycotted a government programme in Jammu on Tuesday to register their protest.
Cutting across party lines, DDC members staged the protest in the lawns of Jammu convention centre, where they all had gathered to attend a training programme organized by the Rural Development Department.
Terming the administration’s Monday order a “humiliation and insult”, they refused to attend the training programme, which was scheduled to be inaugurated by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. This prompted the government to cancel the programme.
DDC member Shabir Ahmad Lone said they will resign en masse if the government did not revoke the order.
Muzaffar Ahmad Dar, another DDC member, said: “We were promised to be given powers on a par with MLAs, but the bureaucrats are against it. They have issued the order without consulting us.”
The J&K administration had amended its warrant of precedence (WOP) on Monday, placing the chairperson of DDC equal to the administrative secretary/inspector general of police.
According to the WOP, the vice-chairperson and member of DDC will be equal to the vice-chancellor of a university and the chairperson of block development council (BDC), respectively.
The administration had also fixed the honorarium of DDC chairperson at Rs 35,000 per month, that of vice-chairperson at Rs 25,000 and member at Rs 15,000.