Commissionerate system restored

LAHORE - After a long wrangling between the provincial government and the Governor Punjab, at last Salman Taseer has signed the dotted line of a summary for the revival of the office of the Divisional Commissioner. With the exit of General (r) Pervez Musharraf - the actual ambitious man behind the establishment of the Local Government System created on the pattern of his predecessors Ayub and Zia - the first tangible jolt to the much-touted but equally controversial system has been dealt through the revival of the Divisional Commissioners. With this, the most powerful and prestigious office of the bureaucracy has been restored, and Commissioners will join their offices in eight divisions - Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, Sargodha, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwalla and Lahore - when the present administrative incumbents will post four Grade-21 and equal number of Grade-20 officers. "This will definitely bring back the glory attached to the civil officers' prestige, especially District Management Group officers, who have been virtual chief executives of the divisions, which are the largest territorial boundaries, though smaller to the province," said a senior officer. According to well-placed sources, Salman Taseer on Saturday has signed the summary after a briefing was given to him on October 21 by Chief Secretary Punjab Javed Mahmood, Senior Member Board of Revenue Safdar Javed Syed, Secretary Law Abdul Razzaq Bhatti, Local Government and Community Development Department Khawaja Naeem. They briefed the Governor about the proposed amendments in the Land Revenue Act and powers of the Divisional Commissioners. The process in this regard started in the last week of August this year when Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif had formally approved the restoration of the post of the Divisional Commissioner, and as a result of this decision, eight administrative divisions had been restored. He had also directed for making appropriate amendments in different laws for making the office of the Commissioner as an effective hub of coordination and control. In the second week of the next month, summary in this regard was sent back to the CM's office when the Governor asked for a briefing from the CS, SMBoR, and Secretaries Law and LG&CD Department. After this, summary from the Governor was again sent back to the same office seeking input of the Law Department, which added amendments in the Act. "The Governor wanted that the revival of the post should not in any way violate the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001. Moreover, there must be clear-cut demarcation of the powers of the Commissioners, and only those powers should be given to them, which have not been devolved in the PLGO, and the devolved departments should keep on working sans any change," said a source privy to the developments. Moreover, Secretary Law was directed to re-examine the draft Ordinance for ensuring that there was no conflict with the PLGO. "Here came the problem, because certain blunders were made in the summary, including wrong annexures and draft Ordinance. Interestingly, these were simply sent to the Governor sans vetting, which annoyed the latter, while the present officers concerned were left with no option except apologising. Nevertheless, this has become part of the summary signed by the Governor," said the source adding that another 'corrected' summary was sent to Salman Taseer, which was signed by him on Saturday. According to another source, section 5, 7 and 9 of the Land Revenue Act 1967 would be amended, which respectively deal with the restoration of the broken divisions, authority to appoint Divisional Commissioners, and their powers. "However, the subjects covered in the PLGO will not be violated in any way. By virtue of this, Commissioners' powers will be that of the provincial government besides powers of the member Board of Revenue. For instance, earlier appeal against the decision of the Executive District Officer (Revenue) was to be launched with the Member BoR, but now the Commissioner would be there to take care of issue," said the source adding that new cases would be initiated with the Commissioners while members, who were already over-burdened with the cases, would deal with the previous ones. "On the other hand, the Punjab government has started filling the EDO (R) posts, which were earlier mostly left vacant while giving additional to other officers though most of the senior and junior officers preferred to be posted as EDO (R) for it is a 'lucrative' post," maintained the officer having doubts whether they would no threat to the PLGO. According to the source, the amended Ordinance is yet to notified. While enumerating Commissioners' powers, he said that they could be able to transfer officials up to Grade-17, grant permission for development funds up to Rs 50 million, powers of disaster management, and coordination at the divisional level. "For the establishment and revival of the most coveted office, the Punjab government has already approved budget," he added while lamenting over undue media hype and irresponsible reporting - for an ambitious aim at taking lead over others - even prior to the signing of the summary by the Governor.