LAHORE, Jan 1: The Punjab government has failed to form the district cadre service by Dec 31, 2005, in violation of the amended Local Government Ordinance-2001. According to section 140-A of the ordinance, which was amended on June 6, 2005, all the provincial governments were required to establish and notify the district cadre service by the said date.

“We have held only three to four meetings during the past six months to consider the legal requirement. But nothing has come up in concrete,” sources said on Sunday.

They said the provincial government had not also made any formal move to have the deadline prescribed in the ordinance extended.

According to the sources, the deadline could be extended or a grace period given only through an amendment in the ordinance which again could be done after president’s approval.

They said the province had so far only considered how to create the service cadre but the legal requirement had not been fulfilled.

The amendment was reportedly incorporated by the National Reconstruction Bureau, and the officials were unaware as to how violation of the law could be avoided.

“We are not aware whether the service has been created in other provinces or not,” they said.

The service, if created, would cover the employees of 20 decentralized departments working under the district governments.

So far, the provincial government has only notified rules governing the tehsil municipal administration service.