LAHORE, April 20: After finding it not viable, the Punjab government intends to rehash the local government system by reducing powers of nazims and equipping the field administrative machinery with management and magisterial powers to recreate a deliverable chain of command from top to the bottom.

And in view of this, it is posting officers as DCOs and DDORs who could immediately start delivering under the proposed administrative system as soon as it is introduced. The local government system introduced by President Pervez Musharraf in the name of devolution of power cannot be amended without his approval at the moment. And officials believe that this would now be possible after the adoption of the constitutional package the federal government intends to introduce for striking a balance between powers of the president and the parliament.

The new team of top officials in Punjab, put in place before the induction of the PML-N government, considers the LG system the mother of all ills the country in general and the province in particular are facing at the moment.

They say the system abolished the colonial magistracy system without providing an alternative management system. This allowed mushrooming of problems without leaving anyone to tackle them as a basic responsibility.

“The new management mechanism we are planning will be a mixture of the past administrative and the present local government system,” a senior official says.

According to him, the government has been selecting officers for the posts of DCOs and DDORs who have administrative experience and ability so that the new system could be put in operation without any fail.

The DDORs will be given the powers of the defunct assistant commissioners and the DCOs of the defunct deputy commissioners.

Regional coordination officers will also be introduced to control DCOs in the defunct divisions. They will act like the defunct divisional commissioners and also write annual confidential reports (ACRs) of the DIG range and respective DCOs.

These posts have already been created by the NWFP.

The official says under the present local government system the posts of DDO (revenue) and DDO (registration) are the important ones so far as administration is concerned. That is why they will be given the powers of the assistant commissioners.

The other types of DDOs are like the staff officers of the DCOs working as the defunct ADCGs. And therefore, they will most probably continue to function in their present form.

The official says the defunct deputy commissioner and magisterial system had an `inbuilt setup’ through which the provincial government could easily implement its policy, and have a quick feedback. This link went missing in the local government system under which nazims were given administrative powers.

Law and order was made the responsibility of district nazims who never performed this duty because they were partisan and were easily browbeaten by police officers.

He said the Lahore nazim was never in the picture during agitation by lawyers last year or any mishap like the suicide attack in front of the Lahore High Court. And the situation created a lot of problems for the provincial government, which had no natural legal mechanism to intervene.

“A think tank is actively studying the new system. We don't intend to wrap up the local government system. In fact the district governments will be left only with social or development work, the rest will go to the provincial government through the field officers,” he said.