A very short chronology of Panchayats of Bengal, West Bengal
1885
Bengal Local Self Government Act was enacted. Before this act, there was Chowkidari Act, 1870, in which a Chowkidar was appointed by the District Magistrate and his activity was limited to prevent criminal activities in the village level. There are three tiers or boards according to the act of 1885, viz., (1) District Board (2) Local Board (3) Union Committee.
1919
Bengal Village Self Government Act was passed. Actually, there was a constant debate over the issues of self governance and local level, village level self governance system within the British Parliament. In 1907, a Royal Commission was made up for making concrete proposals on local self government issues. The activity of the District Board was limited to the sectors like primary education, water supply, road and culvert construction, public health. Limited budget and employee constrained the developmental activities in the rural areas.
1947 - 1959
In 1951, in the First Five Year Plan, Panchayats was accepted as the main developmental tools in the rural areas. In 1952, Community Development Programme was also started. Under these circumstances, review and reorganization was necessitated. The Planning Commission of India constructed Balawant Rai Mehta Committee to scrutinize the Community Development Programmes and National Development Service Programmes in 1957. Balawant Rai Mehta Committee recommended the objectives of democratic decetralization in 1958.
The State of West Bengal passed the Panchayat Act in 1957 and set-up a two-tier system at the village and Union levels. It was amended according to the recommendations of the committee and enacted in 1958. Under Community Development Blocks Gram Panchayats and in the Old Union Board (for a group of village) Anchal Panchayats were made up. 15 Jilla Parishads, 325 Anchal Parishad, 2926 Anchal Panchayat and 19,662 Gram Panchayat have been planned to establish. At the time, there was 335 CDBs in the State. Assansole-Ranigunj coal mining area and industrial belt constituted by 10 CDBs. These were under Bengal Village Self-Government Act, 1919.
1963
The West Bengal Zilla Parishads Act 1963 introduced two other tiers and the contours of a three-tier system (as continues today, the Zilla Parishad (ZP) at the district level, the Panchayat Samiti (PS) at the block level and the GP for a cluster of villages) emerged only with the West Bengal Panchayat Act 1973. The confirming amendment to this was made in 1994 following the Constitutional 73rd Amendment 1992 (MoPR, GoI, 2007).
1973
West Bengal Panchayat Act is passed by the State Government. This Act is named as West Bengal Panchayat Act, 1973. Upto 2010, this act has been amended 29 times, all targeted towards strengthening then rural self governing system. In this act three tire Panchayat system was enacted and that structure is continuing today. 1978 In the month of June, 3-tier Panchayat election has taken place. 2.5 crore rural people casted their vote for 56,000 candidates in 30,000 election booths. In 2008, seventh Panchayat election took place.
In 2008, Panchayat election took place in 3320 Gram Panchayats. 112 Gram Panchayats were within Gorkha Hill Council area and in Siliguri sub-division there were 22 Gram Panchayats. In these Panchayats, election completed in 2009.
