PESHAWAR, Jan 24: The NWFP government is developing an institutional linkage between different tiers of the government by devising a unified service structure for secretaries of union councils.

A committee, headed by the NWFP secretary for local government and rural development department, had finalised recommendations for the proposed linkage and service structure, which were being sent to the provincial cabinet for approval within a couple of days, officials told Dawn.

The committee had prepared the recommendations on the basis of the existing practices of union, town and district councils.

The officials said the committee had observed that duties and functions of secretaries of union councils had increased manifold in the new local government system. But there was no service structure or institutionalised linkage between districts, tehsils and union councils in the new setup.

Although a skeleton staff -- a director-general (BPS-19), deputy director (BPS-18), computer operator and naib qasid -- was there, it was insufficient to achieve the objective of devising a unified service structure.

“Keeping in view the existing state of affairs, the committee has suggested that all union councils of the province should be categorised as A, B, C and D as adopted by the Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) to establish an institutional linkage between all three tiers of the local bodies,” the officials said.

The committee has suggested that the post of secretary of union council should be upgraded and promoted accordingly. It also recommended that the supervision of staff of union councils should be given to tehsil municipal officers (TMOs).

The committee, the officials said, had also suggested that the services of secretaries and naib qasids of union councils should be merged into local councils’ servants being governed under the NWFP Local Councils (Servants) Rules, 1981.

The committee proposed that a post of supervisor in BPS-11 should be created in each TMA out of the local fund against which the existing union council secretaries could be promoted as supervisors in the TMA.