Kosovo Polje municipality launched an initiative and established a team that would in the following days collect signatures of Ugljare inhabitants, the village in Gracanica municipality, to merge the village with neighbouring Kosovo Polje municipality, RTV KIM learns.

Kosovo Polje municipality confirmed the initiative to RTV KIM. The source from the municipality could not tell when its officials would start the visits on the ground, however it would happen very soon.

This initiative is launched after Kosovo Polje municipality recently adopted proposal by Gracanica municipality on “delineation” that stipulates cadastral zones of Preoce and Ugljare should belong to Kosovo Polje. The majority of Gracanica municipal councilors agreed that Gracanica municipality renounces 108 hectares of land to the benefit of Albanian-majority Kosovo Polje municipality.

If this proposal is accepted, Gracanica would hand over Marigona settlement and part of the agricultural land in that area, including one part of Preoce and Ugljare. The Ministry of Local-Governance Administration has not yet adopted the proposal of the two municipalities.

Inhabitants from the both villages say they were not informed about the intentions of the two local-self-governments, and no meeting was held with them.

“There was no meeting, at least not that I am aware of. Inhabitants know nothing about it, and everybody got hold to piece of information on their own, but nothing official. No one from Gracanica municipality told us anything about it,” Srdjan Zivkovic, leader of Ugljare village told RTV KIM.

Around 650 Serbs live in this former ethnic Serb village. The village has a primary school, and following the conflict, a health house, kindergarten and Kosovo Polje municipality in Serbian system are placed there.

Until the process of decentralization and establishment of the Gracanica municipality in 2008, Ugljare village belonged to the Kosovo Polje municipality.