GUJRAT: The Punjab government is likely to give tehsil status to at least four towns in as many districts of the province by the next one week as it has asked deputy commissioners of these districts and all administrative secretaries of Punjab to submit reports within three days.

The four new proposed tehsils are Jalalpur Jattan in Gujrat district, Gaggo Mandi in Vehari, Chowk Sarwar Shaheed in Muzaffargarh and Dharanwala in Bahawalnagar district.

The secretary revenue, Punjab Boar of Revenue (BoR), in a letter on Nov 21, asked the administrative secretaries of all the departments as well as the DCs of the four districts to send reports for establishment of new tehsils. The letter said that to finalise the proposal and its financial implications, information on recurring expenditures was required for infrastructure development, procurement under non-development budget, number of new posts to be created and salaries and allowances of staff.

The matter of new tehsil status to Jalalpur Jattan has already been under consideration of the Punjab government due to the demand of the district administration as well as the elected representatives of the area belonging to the PML-N.

Gujrat Additional Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) Syed Musa Raza told Dawn that he had convened a meeting of the representatives of all the relevant departments today (Friday) to discuss the matter and a report on the proposal would be forwarded to the BoR.

Another administrative official said initially the offices of assistant commissioner, tehsildar revenue, sub-divisional police officer (SDPO), and education and health department’s tehsils level offices would be required; however, revenue portion for setting up courts and offices of 30 to 35 departments would also be the needed for infrastructure development of the new tehsil. He added that while preparing such proposals, mostly the offices and staff for ACs, DSPs, deputy district officers of health and education would get preference and the other important departments might get ignored that would cause problems at later stages so the proposal should be prepared for adjustment of all the departments.

Tahirul Mulk, adviser to Punjab chief minister on social welfare department, said the notification of new tehsil was likely to be issued within a couple of weeks as most of the paper work had already been done and now the matter was in final phase.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Hamza Shahbaz had accepted the proposal of Nawabzada family (the family belonged to) for the new tehsil status for Jalalpur Jattan and the decision would facilitate the area people, he added.

Jalalpur Jattan town already has a cantonment area besides having the premier educational institutions like the University of Gujrat and Nawaz Sharif Medical College located only five kilometers from it whereas an under-construction bridge over Chenab river at Shahbazpur would soon be linking it and Gujrat with the Sialkot airport as well as the Sialkot-Lahore motorway.

The district administration had first asked for tehsil status for Jalalpur Jattan in 1993 when Phalia and Mandi Bahauddin were separated from Gujrat after award of district status to Mandi Bahauddin; however, respective administrations continued pleading the case of tehsil status for this town.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2017