Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy introduced a Bill in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday to merge the Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
The Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (Merger of Union Territories) Bill, 2019, seeks to provide “better delivery of services to the citizens of both Union Territories by improving efficiency and reducing paper work.”
The statement of objects and reasons says: “Having two separate constitutional and administrative entities in both Union Territories leads to lot of duplicacy, inefficiency and wasteful expenditure.”
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“In view of the policy of the government to have Minimum Government, Maximum Governance, considering the small population and limited geographical area of both Union Territories, and to use the services of officers efficiently, it has been decided to merge the Union Territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu into a single Union Territory,” it said.
The move comes three months after the State of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
India now has nine Union Territories; with the merger of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the number will come down to eight.
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The statement said the two Union Territories are located in the western region, and were under Portuguese rule for long. They were liberated in December 1961. From 1961 to 1987, Daman and Diu were part of the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu. When Goa got Statehood, Daman and Diu were made a separate Union Territory. “The Union Territories share a lot in terms of administrative set- up, history, language and culture,” the statement said.