Drawing boundaries: Preliminary lists, maps of union councils to be ready by 9th

Final lists and maps to be published Nov 3, Lahore to have up to 250 UCs.

LAHORE:

The district administration plans to prepare preliminary lists and maps by October 9 of the city’s union councils, which will form the constituencies for the local government elections, according to District Coordination Officer Naseem Sadiq.

The district administration has started work on defining the boundaries of the union councils – dubbed city councils in urban areas and village councils in rural areas   as per the Punjab Local Government (Delimitation) Rules 2013, which were issued on September 28. Meetings on the subject are being held daily, local government officials said.

The government has appointed the divisional commissioners as the delimitation authorities for deciding public objections to the proposed constituency boundaries. The DCO is the delimitation officer, and assistant commissioners are assistant delimitation officers.



Under the Punjab Local Government Act of 2013, the provincial capital will be managed by a metropolitan corporation consisting of members elected directly from each city council as well as several indirectly elected members. The members will elect a mayor and deputy mayor. The Punjab government told the Lahore High Court on Thursday that the polls would be held on or before December 14.

The metropolitan corporation shall consist of at least 150 city councils, each having a population of at least 20,000. Cities and towns other than Lahore will be managed by municipal corporations (for populations above 500,000) and municipal committees (populations between 35,000 and 500,000). The constituent units of municipal committees have been dubbed wards. Rural areas will be divided into village councils each with a minimum population of 10,000, whose heads will make up the district council.



Schedule

According to the district government, preliminary lists of wards and union councils and maps will be prepared by October 9. They will be published so members of the public can make objections or suggestions by October 10. Reports on the suggestions and objections are to be prepared by the delimitation officers and then submitted by October 23.

The delimitation authority (commissioner) is to make his ruling on the objections and suggestions by November 2. The final lists and maps are to be published by November 3 and notified by November 4.

DCO Naseem Sadiq said that the provincial capital  would likely be divided into between 150 and 250 union councils. The delimitation would be done on the basis of the 1998 Census, with each union council having a population of between 20,000 and 27,000.

Sadiq said that since the census was 15 years old, some new data would also be used to define union councils. He said city government officials were holding daily meetings to check the progress of the work.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2013.