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Thursday March 28, 2024

Sindh passes new LG law

Legislation will allow ECP to conduct delimitation, conduct local bodies polls

By Azeem Samar
February 25, 2015
Karachi
The provincial assembly unanimously passed into law the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill, 2015 on Tuesday, paving the way for the Election Commission of Pakistan to delimit constituencies and hold local bodies polls.
Parliamentary affairs minister Dr Sikandar Ali Mandhro moved the bill for its clause-by-clause consideration after incorporating two amendments recommended by the lawmakers of the opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement.
The consideration was deferred for a day on Monday as the parliamentary leaders of ruling and opposition parties had sought time to consult with each other for incorporating the MQM’s suggestions and amendments in the bill.
The newly passed law empowers the Election Commission of Pakistan to carry out the delimitation of constituencies for local government system units including wards, union councils and union committees as recommended by the apex judiciary.
It defines ward as the basic unit of every local body while a union committee or union council will comprise of four wards each.
The earlier provincial local government law envisaged the formation of panels of candidates by political parties to contest for union council and union committee seats. Under the new law, the system of forming panels has been done away with and candidates will individually contest elections at the ward level.
On the suggestion of the MQM, the law was further amended to increase the number of population for the formation of a union committee in a metropolitan corporation to a minimum of 40,000 and a maximum of 50,000. Previously, it stood between 10,000 and 50,000. Briefing the lawmakers, Mandhro said the election commission would exercise its right for the delimitation of constituencies at the time of holding the local body elections only.
He said after the adoption of the new law, the provincial government through a gazette notification would determine the number of union councils, union committees, and wards in the municipal and town committees.
Afterwards, the election commission will be empowered to carry out fresh delimitation of constituencies of union councils, union committees and wards under certain principles envisaged in the bill for example during the process, every union council, union committee and ward will be considered a single territorial unity with a uniform presence of population.
The boundaries of a union council, union committee or ward will not cross the limits of a revenue talauka or in other cases a metropolitan corporation, district municipal corporation, municipal corporation, municipal committee and town committee.
The new law envisages carrying out the delimitation in accordance with the principles laid down in the Delimitation of Constituencies Act 1974.

Public property law
The provincial assembly also passed into law with a majority vote the Sindh Insurance of Public Property Bill, 2015. The bill was opposed by the lawmakers of the opposition MQM, the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
Under the law, all public properties that come under the administrative control of the government would be insured by the newly established Sindh Insurance Limited instead of the National Insurance Ltd in the light of the 18th Constitutional Amendment.
The parliamentary leaders of the opposition parties in the house, Syed Sardar Ahmed and Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hassan of the MQM and Nand Kumar of PML-F, said the House was not taken into confidence by the government for the formation of Sindh Insurance Ltd. They said the funds spent on forming the insurance company could have been spared for fulfilling other major needs of the province.
Finance minister Murad Ali Shah responded that the assembly had approved the formation of the insurance company at the time of the passage of the annual provincial budget.

Resolution
The provincial assembly unanimously passed a resolution demanding that religious books of minority communities should be included in the curriculum being prepared by the education department.
The private resolution was moved by PML-F MPA Nand Kumar.
It read: “During the period of 1970s, the religious books of the Hindu community were part of the curriculum but were later removed by the education department. This assembly resolves that the education department must include the religious books in the curriculum for minority students and appoint teachers to teach these books to Hindus and Christians on a need basis.”
Speaking on his resolution, Kumar said the exclusion of minorities’ books from the curriculum was a sheer negation of the vision of the Quaid-e-Azam, who in his speech on 11 August, 1947, had envisioned equal rights of people of all religions in the newly founded country.
Senior education minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said the provincial education authorities had already been considering the inclusion of books of other religions in the curriculum and the resolution would further empower his department to achieve this task.
“Sindh is known as the land of Sufi saints where places of worship of the followers of different religions exist side by side since decades,” he said.
“The province will give the minority students their due right to study books about their own religion similar to how Muslim students are given the opportunity to study Islam,” he added.
PML-F’s Mehtab Akbar Rashdi said her party had condemned the exclusion of books of other religions from the curriculum during the military dictatorship in the 80s.

Seats for disabled people
The assembly with a majority vote rejected a private resolution by MQM MPA Naila Munir that called for reserving seats in the National Assembly for disabled people.
The PPP lawmakers opposed the resolution on the premise that there was no need to reserve special seats for disabled people at the present as there was no constitutional bar on them from contesting the elections. They were of the view that all political parties need to first build a consensus on the issue. Later, Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza adjourned the session till March 2.