The government has moved to revive “Gram Sarkar”, the lowest tier of local governance first introduced in 1980, to strengthen community participation in maintaining law and order, conducting arbitration and monitoring rural development projects.
A draft of the “Gram Sarkar Act 2026”, prepared by the Local Government Division (LGD), provides for 17 elected representatives in each of the 41,112 wards under 4,568 unions across the country. Senior LGD officials said the draft would soon be placed before the cabinet.
In each of the nine wards of a union, the Gram Sarkar will be led by the elected union parishad member of the ward, with an elected woman UP member as adviser. The remaining 15 members will be elected by at least 10 percent of the voters in that ward.
Gram Sarkar was scrapped a couple of years after its introduction, during the tenure of then president HM Ershad. A 2003 attempt to bring it back with unelected members ended when the High Court declared the law unconstitutional.
The draft does not mention an honorarium for the nearly seven lakh members nationwide. An official involved in the process said remuneration had been discussed and the finance ministry’s opinion had been sought.
Under sub-section 9(d) of the draft, a person is disqualified only if convicted of an offence involving moral turpitude and sentenced to at least one year in prison. Someone jailed for less may contest five years after release. Public administration expert Firoz Mia, a former additional secretary, said no one convicted of such an offence should be involved in state affairs, even as an arbitrator.
Researcher Abdul Awal Mazumder, a former secretary, said the system would work well if introduced with good intentions, but it must be piloted first. He suggested 50 upazilas across the eight divisions and said there were allegations that racketeers act as arbitrators in many places.
A senior official at the LGRD ministry, who asked not to be named, said the government wants to launch it without a pilot, though no final decision has been made. LGD Senior Secretary Shahidul Hassan declined to comment.
State Minister for LGRD and cooperatives Mir Shahe Alam said Gram Sarkar would help deliver services to marginalised people and reduce errors in birth and death registration.
