SA passes LG (Amended) Bill-2015

The Sindh Assembly in the light of directives of the Supreme Court of Pakistan Tuesday passed the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Bill-2015.

In the new amended Bill, the Election Commission of Pakistan (provincial) had been given powers to conduct delimitation on wards, union councils and union committees.

With the passage of this Bill, the pattern of contesting local government elections had also been changed and now the ward would be the basic unit of LG polls contest as compared to previous pattern of contesting the LG polls in panel form. Thus the contestants would contest on individual basis.

Each union council or union committee would consist of four wards while all contesting political parties could nominate their candidates to contest the LG polls. The limit of population in union committees in metropolitan corporations would range from 40,000 to 50,000.

On this, Sindh Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sikandar Meendhro told the House that the powers of the provincial EC for conducting delimitations would only be valid at the time of LG polls while the Sindh government would be the sole authority to bring changes in delimitations of any LG constituency. The Sindh government would announce number of wards, union committees and union councils through gazette notification and each would be considered as one unit with equal population. The limits of any ward, union council or union committee would not cross the demography of revenue taluka, metropolitan corporation, district municipal corporation, municipal corporation, municipal committee or account committee and the Delimitation Act-1973 would be implemented in this regard.

It would be the EC to decide about number of Revenue Dehs or wards, one or two, in each block of the census.

The Sindh government would keep the authority to receive complaints regarding limits of any ward or union council and keep or alter the limits thereof.

This new amended Bill held that the chairman and vice chairman of union councils and union committees would be combined candidates and one member would be elected each from four wards while there would also be a woman general councilor, a peasant member and one from minority side.

The union committee chairman would represent his union committee at the metropolitan corporation or municipal corporation while the vice chairman would represent his union committee at the district municipal corporation.

Elected vice chairman, 22 per cent of women, five per cent of representatives from the minority side and five per cent of peasants or labours would comprise the strength of the district municipal corporation. Similarly, chairman, 22 per cent of women, five per cent of representatives from the minority side and five per cent of peasants or labours would comprise the strength of the metropolitan corporation.

Meanwhile, the Sindh Assembly also passed the Sindh Insurance of Public Property Bill.

Minister for parliamentary affairs Sikandar Mandhro tabled the Govt Bill No 06/2015 The Sindh Insurance of Public Property Bill 2015 for consideration. The MQM lawmakers opposed the consideration. They suggested that the bill should be referred to the standing committee. However, the treasury side disagreed and insisted to consider the bill immediate. The House passed the bill with majority vote.

The Sindh Assembly also passed a resolution that demanded including religious books in curriculum for minority students. The private resolution moved by Nand Kumar of PML-F also suggested appointing teachers to teach the religious book for Hindus and Christians on the need basis. The House passed the resolution unanimously.