The new municipal system, according to South Punjab News , has two categories: the municipal and mohalla councils in urban areas and tehsil and village councils in rural areas.
Sarwar, in a statement in Lahore today, said that under the new local bodies system, the transfer of power had been ensured to the grassroots level.
Additionally, he said that public representatives will be "truly empowered" in the new local bodies system,SPN reported.
The Punjab Assembly on April 30 passed the new Punjab Local Government Bill 2019 within one hour with a majority vote of ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf members after Law Minister Raja Basharat and Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi knocked out the opposition on technical grounds, bringing an end to the existing local councils dominated by the PML-N. The bill was introduced in the house only eight days prior.
The Punjab government has promulgated the Local Government Act and Panchayat and Neighborhood Councils Act today , the existing local governments ceased to exist.
As the Punjab government planned to hold the Panchayat and Neighborhood Councils elections in November this year and local government elections in May 2020, administrators were appointed to run day-to-day affairs of local governments as a stopgap arrangement.
Punjab Local Government Secretary Saif Anjum said Punjab’s new local government law has introduced two-tier administrative infrastructure – Panchayat at rural level and Neighborhoods Council at the lowest level of local government in urban areas.
In the new local government law, Anjum said the district councils were abolished in the rural local governments and replaced by a Tehsil Council at each tehsil level raising the number from 35 districts to 138 tehsils across the province.
In place of existing union councils, the new law introduced Panchayat for each Mauza – so there are 22,000 Panchayat instead of 3,281 union councils.
In the urban local government system, there is a Metropolitan Corporation for four cities – Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi; municipal corporations for eight cities – Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, Sargodha, Sahiwal, Sialkot, Murree, Bahawalpur and Gujrat.
He said the urban union councils and wards were abolished and some 2,400 Neighborhood Councils were established at grassroots level. There are municipal committees in 182 cities and town committees in 40 small towns.
Explaining about the local government elections structure, the Secretary said there would be party-based elections for urban and tehsil councils, while mayor and chairpersons would be elected through direct election. The members will be elected on a panel proposed by party on a proportional basis.
The Panchayat and Neighborhood Councils elections would be held on a non-party basis and the candidate securing highest votes would become chairperson.
Briefing on the local government finances, Anjum said the funds would be directly transferred to urban local governments, tehsils councils, Panchayat and Neighborhood Councils – ensuring more transparency and efficiency.
As per KPK precedent, he said, one-third of the ADP funds would be transferred to local governments for devolved functions. In addition to this, he said, “Rs40 billion would be transferred to panchayats and neighborhood councils for local development”.
The Secretary also explained functions of urban local governments, tehsils councils, Panchayats and Neighborhood Councils.
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