GUJRAT: Local authorities have included a huge chunk of rural areas into the municipalities of urban areas of Gujrat district.

Some 46 villages have been included into the Gujrat Municipal Corporation, stretching its limits in the proposed plan of demarcation of local bodies that has already been under process of being notified.

Though the Gujranwala commissioner, the appellant authority against the demarcation done by the respective district administration, has excluded some villages from the proposed plan but most of the rural areas have finally been included into the limits of municipalities.

Five villages surrounding the areas of Gujrat city have been excluded from the proposed plan of the GMC limits but at the same time the commissioner has accepted appeals of including five other villages into the corporation.

Gujrat Deputy Commissioner Dr Khurram Shahzad says that the expansion into the limits of the municipalities has been proposed keeping in view the future 10 years of shifting of rural population to urban centers as well as the international standards of demarcating the urban limits.

Some 46 villages have been included in the Gujrat Municipal Corporation

In the presence of a municipal corporation and two municipal committees of Jalalpur Jattan and Kunjah, the local authorities have proposed that the Mungowal union council along Gujrat-Sargodha road and Shadiwal union council have be given the status of a municipal Committee and a town committee, respectively.

At least 40 villages have been included into the proposed limits of the Mungowal Municipal Committee whereas 19 and 20 villages have been included into the limits of Jalalpur Jattan and Kunjah municipal committees, respectively.

However, the commissioner excluded five villages from the Kunjah MC and one each from the Jalalpur Jattan MC and Shadiwal TC.

It is pertinent to mention that Kharian Tehsil’s town of Dinga has been down-graded to the level of a town committee from its previous status of a municipal committee whereas Kharian, Lalamusa and Sara-i-Alamgir cities have been kept as municipal committees with addition of a few villages.

As many as 129 villages of Gujrat tehsil have been made the part of the municipalities in the fresh demarcation of the boundaries of the rural and urban areas for the new local government system that also replaces the district councils with the newly proposed Tehsil councils for giving representation to the rural population.

A senior official said the commissioner had decided the appeals against the proposed demarcation of the rural and urban areas of Gujrat and now these proposals could only be challenged in the high courts.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2019