LAHORE: The Punjab Local Government and Community Development (LG&CD) department has notified that the defunct union councils shall completely discontinue providing public services and be succeeded by the local government from May 1 (tomorrow).

All deputy commissioners, being the head of District Transition Team of their respective districts, have been informed about the transition through a notification.

All the 3,454 [defunct] union councils of Punjab that were 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 May 1, 2020,” says the notification.

According to the notification, the offices of the defunct UCs shall cease to exist. Office premises on rent shall be vacated from May 1, 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 UCs shall report for further duty to the [LG&CD] deputy director of their respective district on May 1. The succeeding LG of defunct union council shall perform the function of registration of births, deaths, marriages and divorce as per practice through the staff of local governments. Administrator of succeeding local government shall be kept constantly informed about the quality of service delivery.

LG&CD Secretary Dr Ahmad Javed Qazi directed the officers concerned to consult duly notified chart of succeeding local government constituted under the Punjab Local Government Act 2019 for details as copies of such notifications and charts had already been made available in the offices of all deputy commissioners. “We are striving to digitalise and automate our function and hence citizens shall soon be able to report online for birth and death registration in the province,” said Dr Qazi.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2020