LAHORE, Aug 13: Provincial election commissioner Ayaz Muhammad Baig has said that by-elections to one per cent vacant reserved seats for women in union councils in Punjab will be held by the end of September.

Speaking at the concluding session of a two-day provincial consultation workshop of Punjab Citizen Networks organised by the Aurat Foundation here on Sunday, he said the seats had remained vacant because no nomination papers were received for the same during the local government elections.

He said women had contested elections on 99 per cent UC seats due to efforts of non-government civil society organisations. The number of women who had contested the recent LG polls was also much higher as compared to the elections held in 2001.

Punjab local government director-general Chaudhry Muhammad Shahbaz said participation of women in UC elections was much higher than expected because of motivation by NGOs. Most of the women came into the field for contesting election against nominees of the Chaudhrys.

He said women councillors were taking keen interest in the training programme launched by the local government department in collaboration with the Women Political School. As many as 16,164 women councillors had received training so far.

An average 90 per cent councillors were participating in the training and were being paid special allowance.

Aurat Foundation executive-director Nigar Ahmed said Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif had not agreed to reserve seats for women in local bodies and assemblies, but Gen Pervez Musharraf had agreed to the proposal for impressing western countries. The government first agreed to allocate 50 per cent seats to women but reserved only 33 per cent eventually.

She said political culture of the country had changed following the reservation of 33 per cent seats for women in local bodies and assemblies. A negligible number of women participated in local bodies elections from backward areas in 2001. The number increased significantly during the recent polls.