ISLAMABAD: The government of Punjab informed the Supreme Court on Wed­nesday that initial preparations had been completed and now the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) could start delimitation of union councils and wards in the province for holding the much-awaited local bodies’ polls.

The Sindh government told the court that it had already conveyed to Chief Election Commissioner retired Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan its readiness to conduct the elections in the province by February next year.

Take a look: ‘LG polls in Sindh, Punjab may be delayed beyond 2015’

It said the provincial assembly had passed the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2015 on Feb 24. The bill was referred to the provincial assembly after the ECP had pointed out certain anomalies in the act earlier passed by the assembly. A meeting of all deputy commissioners was called and later a set of amendments to the act were referred to the Sindh Assembly for approval.

The reports submitted by the Punjab and Sindh governments will be taken up by a two-judge bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja on Thursday.

The court will take up implementation of its March 20 judgment which had vested the ECP with the authority of carrying out delimitation of constituencies and then holding the local government elections in Sindh and Punjab. The verdict had said that the absence of local bodies for over nine years was against the Constitution and law.

Sindh says it’s ready to hold LG polls early next year

At the last hearing on Feb 12, the court had summoned chief secretaries of the two provinces, along with secretaries of local government departments, to explain why no assistance was being rendered to the ECP for holding the elections. The court had also cautioned that it would call the chief ministers if no concrete measures were taken to hold the elections as early as possible. The court had earlier made a damning observation that the governments were dragging their feet and were not serious in holding the local bodies’ elections in Punjab and Sindh.

The Punjab’s report submitted by Local Government and Community Develop­ment Secretary Khalid Masood Chaudhry said the ECP could initiate the delimitation process in the province. It said the provincial election commission (PEC) had earlier returned certain maps on local areas of 20 districts with observations that some anomalies were yet to be removed.

The anomalies, the report said, had now been removed in consultation with the PEC and the requisite information pertaining to demarcation of local areas and determination of a number of union councils and wards had been provided to the commission up to their satisfaction.

In its report on Feb 12, the ECP said the Punjab government had proposed to hold the elections in November and provided necessary documents, data and maps relating to 29 districts and these were being examined to ensure if they were correct in all respects.

Partial information had been provided about Attock, Faisalabad, Okara, Chiniot, Sialkot and Dera Ghazi Khan districts, while the commission was still waiting for necessary maps relating to the Lahore Metropolitan Corpo­ration, it added.

About Sindh, the ECP said the local government department had drawn the commission’s attention to the need for a fresh population census before the local government polls. The department stated that the last census had been held in 1998 and since then huge demographic changes had occurred, especially in urban areas of Sindh.

It had also pointed out that the province was facing difficulties in the demarcation of urban and rural areas while carving out local government institutions and determining population in the areas.

Published in Dawn February 26th , 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play