GUJRAT, Oct 10: Thirty two more union councils have been added to the number of rural area UCs of Gujrat by the district administration, making it 120 from 88 in the fresh delimitation of the district.

According to the notification, issued by Gujrat District Coordination Officer, also the district delimitation officer, Asif Bilal Lodhi, on Thursday, despite the exclusion of some 29 urban UCs of the district, which had turned into wards, the total number of the UCs was now 120 from previous total, including both urban and rural, of 117 in 2001.

However, now the union councils are only in the rural localities whereas the urban localities have been turned into wards.

Some 29 urban UCs of the towns of the district, including 15 of Gujrat city, four of Jalalpur Jattan, four of Lalamusa, two each of Dinga and Sarai Alamgir and one of Kharian and Kunjah each, have now been divided into wards of the respective municipal committees of these towns.

Gujrat city is now divided into 50 wards, Jalalpur Jattan into 24 wards, Lalamusa 24, Kunjah and Kharian 11 each while Dinga and Sarai Alamgir into 12 wards each.

Regarding the rural areas, now Gujrat tehsil is divided into 64 rural UCs, Kharian tehsil into 47 rural UCs and Sarai Alamgir tehsil has got rural UCs. While as many as 20 urban UCs of Gujrat, seven urban UCs of Kharian and two of Sarai Alamgir have been turned into wards.

It is learnt that the some legislators, belonging to the ruling PML N, still have reservations about the delimitation by the administration despite of the fact that the officials concerned had been working in consultation with them which was also criticized by the local leadership of the main stream opposition parties, including the PPP, PTI, PML Q and JI.

Official sources said the objections of the ruling party’s men to the delimitation had actually their roots in differences between the legislators as in some of the constituencies of the district, the respective MNA did have a difference of opinion with both of his MPAs. They added that such a situation had been a big cause of embarrassment for the government officials associated with the delimitation process.

KUNJAH: Kunjah, another town of the Gujrat district, has now achieved the status of municipal committee with the approval of the Punjab Local Government department.

Earlier, the provincial authorities had awarded the status of municipal committee to six towns of the district, including Gujrat, Jalalpur Jattan, Kharian, Lalamusa, Dinga and Sarai Alamgir whereas Kunjah had been kept as a town committee.

However, the authorities first changed the status of Gujrat city from municipal committee to the municipal corporation and now Kunjah has given the municipal committee status.

However formal notification in this regard is likely to be issued within next 24 hours. Gujrat DCO Asif Lodhi told Dawn that Kunjah had been given the MC status.