PESHAWAR, April 18: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour said here on Wednesday that local bodies’ elections would be held on party basis in the last week of October or first week of November across the province.

Talking to journalists, he said that the select committee of provincial assembly completed deliberations on the Local Government Bill 2010, earlier tabled in the house on March 25, 2010, and it would be taken up in the coming session.

On completion of their tenure, the provincial government had dissolved the elected local governments on Feb 20, 2010. The elected nazims were replaced with administrators.

Dissolving the local governments, Mr Bilour had promised that fresh elections for local bodies would be conducted within six months. However, the government failed to hold local bodies’ polls despite lapse of more than two years.

Before the dissolution of the local councils, the provincial assembly had introduced amendments to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Ordinance, 2001, and incorporated Section 179-B in the ordinance empowering the government to dissolve the councils and appoint administrators.

The proposed law would be an amalgamation of Gen Pervez Musharraf’s era local government system introduced in 2001 and Gen Ziaul Haq’s Local Government Ordinance 1979, Mr Bilour said.

Once the provincial assembly passed the bill, then Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti would formally announce exact schedule for the elections, he said.

The senior minister said that preparations for local bodies’ elections were in full swing. After the passage of 18th Amendment, he said, it was the prerogative of the provincial assembly to conduct the local bodies’ elections.

In the proposed new set-up there would be 11 members at union council level, he said, adding among them seven would be general councillors while two seats of the reaming four would be reserved for women and one each for peasants and minorities.

Sources said that municipal corporation would be established in the provincial capital. There would be district councils at district level in rest of the province. They said that municipal corporation would be led by a mayor while head of a district council would be chairman.

At district level, they said, 10 per cent seats would be reserved for women and five per cent each for peasants and minorities. The members of the union council would also establish ‘reconciliatory jirga’ at union council and ward levels to resolve petty issues, they said.

Sources said that members of the jirga would be nominated by the elected members of the union council. The members of the union council would elect one of their colleagues as chairman while each chairman of the union council would be member of the respective municipal corporation or district council, they said.

The district coordination officers and assistant coordination officers would be again renamed as deputy commissioner and assistant commissioner, sources said.