KARACHI, May 25: The rural development and public health engineering and the Kachchi Abadis departments in Sindh have been merged into the Local Government Department. The services of the personnel of the merged departments will also be merged for posting with redesignation.
A summary in this regard presented to Sindh governor Muhammedmian Soomro has reportedly been approved and is likely to be notified soon, it is reliably learnt.
After its notification, Sindh will be the first province in the country to restructure /reorganise the departments in accordance with the devolution plan and SLGO 2001. The governor has also approved the structure of administrative and regulatory arm of the Sindh Local Government Commission and Amended Rules of Business.
The administrative arm would consist of additional secretary, one deputy secretary and four section officers, while the regulatory arm will consist of 12 officers who after redesignation will be known as DG (Inspection, monitoring and evaluation (Sectt - 19), one director (Tech) (19), three deputy directors (Tech) (18), one director audits and accounts (Sectt- 18), three deputy directors - finance, audit, accounts respectively (17), one director legal (18), four deputy directors (LIT), (Reg), (C&C) and Estt GA) respectively (BPS-17) and one director admin & Coord) in BS 18.
The staff of the members LGC will be from the existing working strength of the staff of the department. However, secretariat staff would be drawn from the surplus pool against the vacancies available with the department.
LOCAL GOVT DEPT: The secretary local government shall be the administrative head of the department ex- officio member/secretary of the Sindh Local Government Commission and chairman of the Sindh Local Government Board. The post of additional secretary (local government) has been kept for the functions related with:
i) Kachchi Abadis Authority.
ii) Appellate Tribunal Local Councils.
iii) Local Councils Accounts Committee in its present shape.
iv) Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation Cell including
Khushhal Pakistan Programme.
v) Regulation / rule making for different tiers
of local government.
vi) Sindh Local Government Board
vii) Directorate General (technical)
SUPPORT OFFICERS: One of the main stumbling blocks in maintaining liaison with various tiers of the Local Government is the absence of a field officer at the district level who, among other things, might be responsible for collecting and disseminating information and forming a linkage.
There were five sanctioned posts of directors Local Government stationed at Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana and Mirpurkhas. These posts have now seized to exist. It is proposed that five posts of directors Local Government (BS-18) for the above mentioned stations and 11 posts of assistant directors Local Government (BS-17) for the rest of district headquarters may be re-designated as local government support officers. The four remaining posts of ADLGs will thus go to the Local Government Commission and will be redesignated against available positions in the regulatory arm of the commission against the posts of deputy directors. The proposed functions of district local government support officers would be:
i) To work as an interface between the Local Government Department and district governments, TMAs & UAs.
ii) To lend field support to the Local Government Commission in conduct of annual / special audits and inspections as well as inquiring into the complaints.
iii) To dispatch / compile information to and from district governments, TMAs & UAs.
iv) To work as a coordinator between district governments and TMA’s/UA’s.
PLANNING: The Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation Cell of the department is proposed to remain intact in its entirety and will monitor and manage grant-in-aid/major development (government funded / foreign funded) projects including the Khushhal Pakistan Programme.
TRANSITION WING: The Provincial Transition Wing may continue to function till further orders. The Sindh Local Government & Rural Development Academy will route its matters through PTW. Directorate General (technical), Local Government Department and the district set-up of the Public Health Engineering Department.
On recommendation of the Restructuring Sub-Committee in the meeting held on 16-02-2002 under the chairmanship of acting addl chief secretary (development)/ secretary finance, it has been agreed that skeleton technical setup of Public Health Engineering Department needs to be retained so as to provide technical assistance to the Local Government Department and TMAs besides looking after provincial, inter-district, KPP, foreign aided and mega projects. This has been worked out exactly in consonance with Section 52 of SLGO, 2001.
The sub-committee also recommended placing one XEN, PHE at the district level for lending technical assistance to Local Government for federal/provincial funded water & sanitation projects and other matters related to technical guidance.
The proposed Directorate General (technical) shall work under the secretary Local Government through the additional secretary with no additional cost involved on the part of the government of Sindh. The Organisational setup with proposed redesignated posts against available posts is given as under:
DG/CE (BS-20) PHED Hyderabad has been redesignated as DG (technical), LGD Hyderabad. Director technical (BS-19) SE post has been redesignated as director technical Hyderabad. Design officer/XEN (BS-18) PHED Hyderabad as design officer/XEN LGD Hyderabad. Assistant design officer (BS-17) PHED Hyderabad as assistant design officer (BS-17) LGD at Hyderabad. Research officer (BS-18) PHED Hyderabad as SE (BS-19) LGD Hyderabad and SE (BS-19) PHED, Sukkur at Khairpur as SE (BS-19) LGD Sukkur.
RULES OF BUSINESS: In keeping with the aspirations of SLGO, 2001 and above restructured shape, functions of the Local Government Department, it is proposed to re-define the previous functions of the Local Government Department as defined in Rules of Business, 1986. The following are the proposed / amended functions:
(i) To act as secretariat of Local Government Commission.
(ii) To deal with establishment matters of Sindh Councils Unified Grade Service (SCUG), Non SCUG i.e PHED, RDD, housing and other provincial employees of the Local Government Department working in different tiers.
(iii) Coordination with all tiers of the Local Government.
(iv) To impart training to the elected councillors and government functionaries at the Sindh Local Government & Rural Development Academy.
(v) To accordance with the federal government and donor agencies and provide interface between different tiers of the local govt. viz.-a-viz federal government and donor agencies.
(vi) Supervision, coordination and monitoring of foreign aided and mega projects of water supply, drainage and sanitation at inter district/provincial level.
(vii) To provide technical assistance to all tiers of the local government.
(viii) Framing of rules & regulations under the the Sindh Local Government Ordinance, 2001 and other related enactment.
(ix) To oversee the working and lend support to the Provincial Transition Wing (PTW).
(x) Judicial Powers for local governments.
(xi) Processing the matters of grant-in-aid to local governments.
(xii) Management of appellate tribunal for local government.
(xiii) Functioning of Local Government Accounts Committee.
(xiv) Service matters except those entrusted to S&GAD.
(xv) Supervision of the Sindh Kachchi Abadi Authority.
(xvi) Formulation, monitoring & evaluation of the urban development policies/programmes including the provincial housing policy and any other specially assigned development programmes.
