LAHORE, March 6: Only around 30 per cent of laws of different departments have so far been amended under the devolution plan launched on March 14 last year, hampering government functioning.

Sources said here on Wednesday that only 45 ordinances amending laws of various provincial departments had so far been promulgated to facilitate the working under the new system.

But, they said, the departments concerned too had been referring back these ordinances to the provincial law department for further refinement and adjustments according to the problems being cropped up while making adjustments with the district governments.

“We are still required to amend around 70 per cent of the consequential laws and the delay is being caused due to various reasons, the main being the confusions on how to make adjustments,” officials who requested anonymity said.

They said another problem had been the presence of federal laws which many departments like labour, forest and environment protection had been following. It required advice from the federal government to amend these laws which was time consuming, they said.

They said the absence of relevant laws was affecting work at the district level like who would remove encroachments and how.

The officials said keeping in view the enormity of the situation the Punjab chief secretary had in a recent meeting asked the administrative secretaries to speed up the process of amending the laws.

The present government intended to complete the job before the holding of general elections and ultimately transfer of power so that the system could continue according to requirement, they said.