Administration of Davanagere district is carried out mainly through Zilla Panchayat. Davanagere district is a newly formed district in Karnataka, which came into existence during 1997 by including backward taluks from other three districts viz. Chitradurga district, Shimoga district and Bellary district. It covers a total geographical area of 5975.97 Sq. Km.

The office of the Zilla Panchayat is the main body responsible for administration in the district. The office is headed by an officer designated as "Chief Executive Officer" who is appointed by the State Government. The CEO is responsible to carry out the administration of Zilla Panchayat. The rank of Chief Executive Officer is not below the rank of Deputy Commissioner of a district. Chief Executive Officer is designated head of department for all the department offices within the Zilla Panchayat. He is assisted in the discharge of his duties by Senior Officers in the Zilla Panchayat. These include the Deputy Secretary (Admin/Dev.), Chief Accounts Officer, Chief Planning Officer and Council Secretary.

The work of the Zilla Panchayat falls into five main categories. The administration section is headed by the Deputy Secretary and deals mainly with establishment issues and general administration of all the departments within Zilla Panchayat; the development section, also headed by the deputy secretary, deals with the execution of all rural development schemes, water supply schemes, minor irrigation works, road works etc; the accounts section is headed by the Chief Accounts Officer and deals with the receipts and releases of funds to all departments and various development schemes, taking up audit of all the departments coming under Zilla Panchayat; heading the planning section is the Chief Planning Officer, and the department is responsible for the formulation of draft annual plan, formulation of action plan for development schemes, monitoring and evaluation of schemes; the Council section is headed by the Assistant Secretary and is responsible for recording the deliberations of Zilla Panchayat and various standing committees, following up on various decisions taken therein and other issues regarding the Zilla Panchayat members.

The Political Structure of Zilla Panchayat comprises of President, Vice president and elected members. The term of Zilla Panchayat is 5 years.The roles of these members is to create and improvement of the infrastructural facilities such as roads, bridges, drinking water facilities, dispensaries, veterinary hospitals, schools etc. Regular meetings are conducted to identify problems faced in the district with specific focus on action to be taken to address and resolve the problems, development schemes necessary for implementation. The meeting resolutions are then passed on to the CEO of ZP who in turn plans and executes the development activities.

Davangere Zilla Panchayat is constituted of the following members: There are 34 members are elected from geographically demarcated constituencies from within the rural areas of the district.

All the Members of Parliament of the district (1). The State Legislative Assembly (10) & the State Legislative Council (4). Also parts of administrative functions at the primary levels are the taluk panchayats and gram panchayats.

The Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act, 1993, specifies the constitution of the Taluk Pachayat, functions, duties and powers of the taluk panchayat adhyaksha upadhyaksha. The act lays down a three-tier structure of Panchayat. The apex institution, as has already been mentioned, lies at the apex of district administration. Of the six taluks in the Davanagere district, each has a taluk panchayat. Here too the members are directly from the people and has a similar administrative structure headed by the CEO. At the lowest level there are the Gram Panchayats which are having jurisdiction over a group of villages so notified. A number of functions are to be performed by the taluk panchayat such as construction and augmentation of water supply works to the level of not less than forty litres per capita per day, filing half yearly report regarding the activities of Grama Panchayats within the taluk, providing adequate number of class rooms and maintaining primary school buildings in proper condition including water supply and sanitation; acquiring land for locating the manure pits away from dwelling houses in the villages etc.

Each Taluk Panchayat consists of the following standing Committees: a. General Standing Committee; b. Finance, Audit and Planning Committee; c. Social Justice Committee. Thus mentioned is the administrative structure of the Davanagere district.