Union Territories

Union Territories, six territories of India administered by the president of the Indian Union (the head of state) through a lieutenant-governor or administrator appointed by the president. The six are: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry. Two of the territories, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep, are archipelagos located well away from the sub-continental land mass. Three more are former colonial enclaves in India: Puducherry (see French India), Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu (see Portuguese India). Delhi was a union territory from 1956 to 1992, when it became the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The territory of Chandigarh is dominated by the city of the same name. The union territories have a combined area of 9,490 sq km (3,664 sq mi). Andaman and Nicobar Islands account for almost 87 per cent of this total; the other five territories have areas less than 500 sq km (200 sq mi). The total population of the territories is 2,670,113 (2001), of which Puducherry and Chandigarh account for around 70 per cent; the populations of the other four total only 795,370. The average population density is 281 people per sq km (729 per sq mi).

Although all the territories are in theory centrally administered, in practice the amount of local participation in government varies considerably. Puducherry has a lieutenant-governor and a government formed from an elected legislative assembly. In Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep the Union president’s representatives work in conjunction with advisory councils. All the territories have a local government representative in the Lok Sabha (lower house of the national parliament); Puducherry additionally has a representative in the Rajya Sabha (upper house). Each of the six union territories has one seat in the Lok Sabha. In the 1999 general elections three of these seats (for Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu) were won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); two (Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep) went to the Indian National Congress; while one (Puducherry) was won by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.