PESHAWAR, July 21: The NWFP government has transferred the administrative control of the local area authorities from Local Government and Rural Development Department (LG&RDD) to Housing Department, officials said.

A notification to this effect was issued here on July 14, which said: “In exercise of powers conferred under Rule 3 of the NWFP Rules of Business 1985, the Chief Minister, NWFP, has transferred the administrative control of all local area authorities, including City Development and Municipal Department (CD&MD) and Galyat Development Authority (GDA), to the Housing Department with immediate effect.”

The local area authorities had been operating under the administrative control of Housing and Physical Planning Department that was dismantled under the restructuring plan of the government departments for what its architects considered a step to curtail ‘non-development’ expenditures.

Under such a restructuring plan, the LG&RDD got the administrative control of the local area authorities that it had been maintaining till now.

The government had revived the housing department on Nov 1, 2004, to execute housing related projects in the province following which the transfer of administrative control of local area authorities remained under discussion since then.

The NWFP Housing Department wanted to get the administrative control of these authorities for implementation of housing projects as envisaged under the National Housing Policy 2001 and other tasks assigned by the provincial government so far.

The LG&RDD, however, had been opposing such a move, pleading that the shifting of such authorities to the Housing Department would create numerous legal implications.

The Housing, Urban and Physical Planning are devolved departments and covered under the first schedule of Local Government Ordinance, LGO-2001.

The LG&RDD had been taking the stance that basic mandate of the local area authorities was to undertake tasks relating to town development, which were to be completed under the supervision of district governments, thus, these bodies ultimately came within the ambit of districts.

The Housing Department, on the other hand, contended the arguments and stated that although housing was a devolved department, it was not necessary that it should remain with LG&RDD.

It argued that health, education and many other departments were decentralized departments, but they worked within the control of their administrative departments instead of LG&RDD.

The Housing Department had now been empowered to administratively control local area authorities and it would only deal with affairs of employees above Grade 17 at the provincial level, while other staff of the department would be supervised by their respective district governments, the officials explained.