Tehsil without tehsildar for six months
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News Service

Mandi (Poonch), June 9
Even Chief Minister Omar Abdullah seeks to turn Jammu and Kashmir into a “model state”, this tehsil remains without a tehsildar for the past six months.

The locals say there is also no naib tehsildar in Mandi. Sources in the tehsil office said after the previous tehsildar here attained superannuation, the government didn’t send any replacement.

They said since tehsildar looks after the administration of the tehsil, the administrative machinery here is in shambles.

The sources further said for a tehsil with more than 50,000 population, having no tehsildar was a cruel joke.

They added that the people had to suffer due to the absence of tehsildar, since it is the tehsildar who issues government documents like income certificate, state subject, category certificate, etc.

Residents of the Mandi area said since there was no tehsildar in the area, they had to rush to Poonch, 25 km from here, for petty work. They said since majority of the people were poor, they could not afford to travel to Poonch for every minor work.

“For the past six months, we have been urging the state government to appoint a tehsildar for the area, but to no avail. We have to travel to Poonch for minor works. Besides there are other administrative affairs which need to be addressed by the tehsildar, but since there is no tehsildar we all are facing so many problems,” said Najam Jaffri, a resident and a social worker.

“We hope that Omar Abdullah will make every effort to turn the state into a “model state” in the coming years. First, we need a tehsildar for our tehsil.”

Muhammad Shafi, another resident, said to make things worse for the people in the area, there is no naib tehsildar in the tehsil who, to some extent, would have reduced the sufferings of the poor people of this backward administrative unit.

Muhammad Afzal, deputy commissioner, Poonch, confirmed that there was no tehsildar and naib tehsildar posted in Mandi tehsil. However, he added that tehsildar Haveli and naib tehsildar Chandak had been given additional charge to look after the administrative matters of the Mandi.