Peshawar: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) cabinet has approved the Local Government Amendment Bill 2019, a news source quoted Provincial Minister for Local Government, Elections and Rural Development Shahram Khan.
Under the proposed set up, the government plans to abolish the district council as well as the posts of district nazim and naib nazim. Instead, new slots of chairman and convener will be created. There would be a two-tier system in both rural and urban areas. The city areas would comprise tehsil and city local government (to be overseen by a mayor), whereas the rural setup would consist of village and neighbourhood councils.
Elections for the chairman tehsil council and mayor city local government would be held on party basis. To the contrary, elections for village and neighbourhood council will be held on non-party basis. Similarly, the tehsil chairman and city mayor would be elected through direct elections.
The provincial government has also decided to reduce the number of village and neighbourhood council members from 15 to seven. Moreover, the tehsil chairman and city mayor would head provincial departments such as primary & secondary education, social welfare, and public health engineering.
