LAHORE: The Election Commission of Pakistan’s final push for carrying out delimitation of union councils in the province and summoning of top bureaucracy has prompted the Punjab government to finalise a new draft Punjab Local Government Act 2024 in the run-up to hold much-awaited local government elections.

The Local Government and Community Development (LG&CD) department has finally prepared a new Punjab Local Government Act 2024 to hold local government elections and sent it to the law department for vetting.

Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz had constituted a 20-member strong committee convened by local government minister Zeeshan Rafique on April 26 with instructions to deliberate upon the PLGA 2022 and propose draft of a new LG Act to get it through all procedures and come up with a new PLGA 2024 to pave way for next local body elections.

As the committee delayed preparation of the draft law, the ECP had on June 20 issued instructions to the Punjab government to carry out the process of delimitation of union councils with a timeline ranging from June 30 to Sept 1. It also directed that “boundaries of existing administrative units, metropolitan corporations, district councils and defunct local governments shall stand ceased forthwith.”

PLGA 2024 sent to law dept for vetting

The Punjab government, however, requested the ECP to withdraw the directions and allow some more time so that the Punjab government finalises a new PLGA 2024. The ECP, later last week, summoned the chief secretary as well as the local government secretary and allowed about a month to finalise the new law. The new law will replace the November 2022 PLGA, which had replaced the June 2022 PLGA.

A senior officer concerned in the LG&CD department said the new law by the Maryam Nawaz government would declare divisional headquarters and cities having more than 700,000 population as metropolitan corporations; the cities having 200,000 to 700,000 population would become municipal corporations; the cities having 50,000 to 200,000 population would have municipal committees; areas having 20,000 to 50,000 population would have town committees, while union councils be delimited having less than 20,000 population.

The officer said the union councils would have eight general and seven reserved seats for different categories. The member getting the highest number of votes will become chairman and the runner-up as vice-chairman in each union council.

The UC’s elected chairmen and vice-chairmen would become members of the higher tiers of the local government system and become the electorate to elect chairmen or mayors.

Lahore will be a Metropolitan Corporation, while all 40 other districts will have district councils. In Lahore, there will be 10 towns including one cantonment; and 300 union councils.

Meanwhile, a source in the law department said the draft law had urgently been vetted and returned to the local government department to meet urgency shown by the ECP. The proposed law would route through the LG&CD department and chief minister to the provincial cabinet for its nod.

“As the cabinet will approve or suggest improvements, the law department will yet again minutely vet the law before tabling in the Punjab Assembly,” the source said.

It is also learnt that the LG&CD department would also frame delimitation of constituencies rules and delimit the union councils in due course of time. “We expect Punjab will go for local government elections in around four months’ time.”

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2024