Ladakh Extends Autonomous Hill Councils to All Seven Districts

The Union Territory of Ladakh is set to extend its framework of elected local self-governance to all seven of its districts. Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Thursday approved the notification establishing Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (LAHDCs) for each district, a move he said will "empower the people."

The decision comes two months after the Ladakh administration announced the plan and follows the creation of new districts in April. Previously, the LAHDC framework was limited to the two traditional districts of Leh and Kargil. With this notification, the five newly created districts—Sham, Nubra, Changthang, Zanskar, and Drass—will now also have their own councils.

The L-G stated that the establishment of the seven councils will decentralise and strengthen participatory local governance, allowing local aspirations to be reflected more effectively in district-level planning and development. The hill councils were originally created in 1995 under the LAHDC Act, with powers over land allotment, development programme formulation, employment generation, public health, sanitation, and local road transport.

The notification, issued by the Revenue Department of the UT, specifies that elections to the newly constituted councils will be held in due course after a formal notification under Section 8 of the LAHDC Act, 1997. The Act currently provides for 26 directly elected councillors in each council, who then elect a chief executive councillor from among themselves.

This development occurs while representative groups from Ladakh, including the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance, remain in talks with the Ministry of Home Affairs. Their demands include a legislature and protections for land and environment under the sixth schedule of the Constitution. The MHA has scheduled a sub-committee meeting for September 9 in Delhi, following its last engagement with Ladakh on May 22.