Govt Proposes To Merge UTs Of Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu; Bill Introduced In Lok Sabha

The Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (Merger of Union territories) Bill, 2019, moved on behalf of Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, was introduced in the Lok Sabha today.

The Bill proposes to merge the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which presently has only one district with the UT of Daman and Diu, which has two districts. The merged UT will be named as the "Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu".

"Considering small population and limited geographical area of both the UTs and to use the services of officers efficiently, it has been decided to merge the UTs of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu into a single Union territory," the govt. said.

The Bill has been moved in furtherance of the "Minimum Government, Maximum Governance" policy. As per the Statement of Objects and Reasons annexed to the Bill, the two UTs share a lot in terms of administrative set up, history, language and culture and in such circumstances, maintaining two separate secretariats and parallel departments only burdened the State exchequer and wasted manpower.

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"The Administrator, Secretaries, and Heads of certain departments functions in both the Union territories on alternate days affecting their availability to people and monitoring functioning of subordinate staff...Having two separate constitutional and administrative entities in both the Union territories leads to lot of duplicacy, inefficiency and wasteful expenditure. Further, this also causes unnecessary financial burden on the Government," the statement read.

The Bill aims to:

provide better delivery of services to the citizens of both the UTs by improving efficiency and reducing paper work;

reduce administrative expenditure;

bring uniformity in policies;

monitor schemes and projects; and

manage cadres of various employees.

If and when the Bill comes into force, the assets and liabilities of both the UTs will stand merged and will belong to the new territory. Further, it will be allocated two seats in the Lok Sabha. Furthermore, jurisdiction of the High Court of Bombay will continue to extend to the proposed UT.

Since the bifurcation of the UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh on October 31, India has nine UTs. If the present Bill is cleared by the Parliament, the number of UTs will come down to eight.

The Bill is likely to be taken up for consideration and passing in the lower house tomorrow, i.e., November 27.