Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh Government has decided to scale the upper limit of reservation of seats for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) at 15 per cent in Panchayati Raj bodies. This decision was made in order to ensure the classes' effective participation at the grassroot level.

Bhubaneswar: The Orissa government is set to open public grievance cell in every Gram Panchayat office.

Srinagar: A sum of Rs 21 crore has been earmarked by the government for imparting orientation course to recently elected panches and sarpanches in Jammu and Kashmir.

Dungarpur: In a major development, 88 Gram Panchayats in tribal belt of Dungarpur in Rajasthan have vowed to take necessary steps to ward off child labour entirely by November 2011.

Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to keep a track on village Panchayats in the state through Global Positioning System (GPS) system. The scheme has been launched with an objective to check corruption, tardy progress of work, fudging of master rolls, or delay in the release of payments to job card holders by Panchayats.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court had given the responsibility to evict illegally occupied Gram Sabha and Gram Panchayat land meant for the villagers to the Chief Secretaries of all the states and union territories.