All UCs in Punjab to be dysfunctional: Defunct UCs to be succeeded by LGs by May 1

LAHORE: All deputy commissioners, being the heads of the district transition teams of their respective districts, have been directed by the Punjab Local Government and Community Development (LG&CD) Department secretary through a notification that the defunct union councils shall be succeeded by local government by May 1, 2020.

“All the 3,454 defunct union councils of Punjab which had been constituted under the Punjab Local Government Act 2013, and continued under Section 316 (2) of the Punjab Local Government Act 2019 shall discontinue providing public service with effect from 1st May 2020,” says Dr Ahmad Javed Qazi, the secretary, LG&CD Punjab. The offices of the defunct union councils shall cease to exist. Office premises on rent shall be vacated from May 1, 2020, whereas, offices in government owned buildings shall be re-labelled as field offices of the (succeeding) local government. The tasks of defunct union councils shall be taken over by succeeding local governments. All staff member (officers, officials- regular or contractual) working in the defunct union councils shall report for further duty to the deputy director of LG&CD of their respective district on May 1, 2020.

The succeeding local government of defunct union council shall perform the function of registration of births, deaths, marriages and divorces as per practice through the staff of local governments.

The administrator of the succeeding local government shall be kept constantly informed about the quality of service delivery. Dr Ahmad Javed Qazi has also directed the officers concerned to consult duly notified chart of succeeding local government constituted under the Punjab Local Government Act 2019 for details as the copies of such notifications and charts are already available in the offices of all deputy commissioners. “We are striving to digitalize and automate our function, hence, citizens shall soon be able to report online for birth and death registration in the province”, said the LG&CD secretary.