PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Wednesday legislated to provide legal cover to all actions taken by the Peshawar Development Authority since 2002.

The house unanimously passed the bill, Peshawar Development Authority Act, 2017, to legalise the establishment of the already-existent PDA. Local government and rural development minister Inayatullah Khan tabled the bill during the session chaired by Speaker Asad Qaiser.

Section 51 of the law states, “After the repeal of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Urban Development Board (Dissolution) Ordinance, 2002, all actions done, orders given, notifications issued and appointments made, by the director general, in good faith and in accordance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, for the time being in force, till the commencement of this act shall be deemed to be done, given, issued and made under this Act.”

The PDA was dissolved through a notification in 2002 and a body by the name of the City Development and Municipal Department (CDMD) was set up. The local government department again named the CDMD the PDA in 2009.

Assembly passes bill to end controversy over civic agency’s legal status

However, the government has claimed that in 2002, the PDA was not dissolved and it was just renamed.

A controversy emerged last year when the KP ombudsperson questioned the legal status of the PDA over a case and declared it an illegal body. However, the verdict was stayed by the Peshawar High Court. The case is still pending with the court.

Before the legislation, all functions and powers mentioned in the law were there.

There are no major changes in the new law.

The house also passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Health (Surveillance and Response) Act, 2017, for the implementation and enforcement of the measures to prevent and control diseases in the province.

The law was tabled by Minister for Public Health Engineering Shah Farman.

Under Section 9 of the law, district diseases surveillance centres will be established to be headed by the concern deputy commissioners.

The law states that the surveillance center shall be responsible to coordinate, collect, analyse and interpret information received from disease surveillance reporting offices.

It will also be responsible to provide information with regard to events, diseases and persons affected with notified diseases, received from disease surveillance reporting offices to the provincial disease surveillance center for assessment of information of related events and diseases.

The surveillance centre will also be responsible to manage identified health hazards in the environment by developing implementing action plans including strategies for corrective actions for controlling and where possible mitigating exposure based on a risk assessment approach.

Section 3 of the law promises the formation of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Health Committee with the health minister acting as its chairperson and health secretary vice chairperson. The committee will consist of 17 members, all officials of the health and relevant departments.

The law empowers the committee to ensure the core capacities of the International Health Regulations, 2005, of the World Health Organisation with regard to coordination, surveillance, response, preparedness, risk communication and human resource.

The committee will also ensure the availability of all necessary equipment, devices, machines and instruments to assist in surveillance, prevention and control of spread of notifiable diseases and unusual public health events having potential to spread in health and non-health sector to ensure the safety of public health.

The chairperson can declare a state of health emergency after consultation with the director general (health) and WHO.

Any person, who violates this law, will be punishable with fine, which may extend to Rs300,000 but will not be less than Rs50,000 in any case.

The chair adjourned the session until Friday.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2017