DEVOLUTION PLAN – II:Aim of Devolution Plan, Administrative Reforms, Separation of powers

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Introduction To Public AdministrationMGT111

LESSON 41

DEVOLUTION PLAN II

In this lecture we will examine the reasons for devolution, the Devolution plan and its purpose

and the areas where devolution has occurred.

Devolution

In the last lecture it was mentioned that devolution is based on the separation of the executive from

the judiciary, and Article 37 (i) required government to decentralize its operations so as to bring these closer

to the public. The changes included the doing away with the existing three levels of de-concentrated

provincial administration (divisions, districts and tehsils). It meant it was felt that there was need to separate

the three branches of government (i.e. judiciary, executive and legislature).

As we know that the 1973 Constitutions contains Federal and Concurrent List which centralizes

revenue responsibilities by bringing the sales tax under federal control, and the list takes many of the other

responsibilities of provincial government. This centralizes the functions and revenue generation capacity of

provinces. There is thus a significant mismatch between expenditure responsibility and revenue generation

capacity of the lower tiers of government, and the provinces in aggregate depend on federal transfers for

over 78 percent of their revenues. When they depend for revenues from the Federal Government they have

little freedom to plan their own projects.

What Does Devolution Do To The Local State?

Local government as we know is the lowest level or district government. Within districts there are

tehsil and in a tehsil are union councils. As we have learnt that Constitution although has provision for

separation of powers, yet it centralizes power. Devolution Plan 2000 creates local institutions and empowers

these institutions to design development schemes. This is done by creating local governments. In 100

districts there are now 6,458 new local governments and 4 city districts; 306 tehsil municipal administrations

and 29 city towns; and 6,022 union administrations. Under the Devolution Plan there are political reforms,

financial reforms and administrative reforms. Political Reforms had held elections of 126,462 new union

councilors.

Aim of Devolution Plan

It would be pertinent to outline the aim of Devolution Plan 2000. There are three broad aims of

Devolution Plan. These are:

1. To introduced new blood into a political system considered to be the domain of historically

entrenched interests. It was felt that the old and conventional political leaders discouraged

young politicians to participate in election.

2. To provide positive measures for marginalized citizens which include women, workers,

peasants-to have access to politics; and

3. To improve service delivery of social services in particular. It was argued that if local

governments, appropriately empowered, staffed and resourced, would deliver better primary

health, education and municipal services like water and sanitation. A second service-delivery

objective was to improve the laws about property, labour rights and economic activities were

determined and enforced. Thus, local governments were given responsibilities to regulate and

administer laws on land, labour natural resources.

4. The devolution also aimed to facilitate access to justice. The belief that performance of local

administration, courts and police would improve basic human rights.

Citizen Participation

Since devolution aimed at providing and improving services at the local level, therefore, Citizen

Community Boards (CCBs) are set up for alternate dispute resolution, monitoring of court conduct,

promoting justice, accountability of the police and administrative grievance redressal. The CCB comprise

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Introduction To Public AdministrationMGT111

elected people of the area, teachers, doctors, lawyers and other professional. The CCB monitors various

programme implemented at local level.

Administrative Reforms

The executive branch of each district government is divided into 10-13 departments, depending

upon the provinces that carry out its functions. The District Coordination Officer (DCO) established as the

highest-ranking civil servant in the district, heads the District Coordination Department. The office of DC

has been abolished and its powers divided among the district and session judge, district nazim, the District

Police Officer (DPO) and the DCO. An Executive District Officer (EDO) heads each of the remaining

departments. In tehsil the Tehsil Municipal Officer (TMO) performs coordination function similar to EDO.

There are 4 tehsil, taluka or Town Officers (TO), reporting to the TMO: TO (Regulation), TO

(Infrastructure), TO (Finance) and TO Planning).

Provincial Finance Commission (PFC)

Changes in fiscal transfers have been made to complement the devolution of expenditure

responsibilities. On the pattern of federal provincial arrangements transfer to local government were to

the determine by PFC. Local governments have been given the powers to raise some additional revenues

and Provincial Finance Commissions (PFCs) have been established to make awards for distribution of

resources between the province and local governments as well as distribution among local governments.

According to the legislation establishing PFC, the PFC is to evolve a formula for distribution of

resources. The legal provision of the PFC Ordinance aim at the creation of medium-term formula based

transfer system. It took some time for PFC to announce its first award, because the office of PFC was not

set up. The PFC interim award was made in 2002. It was intended to cover the first two quarters of 2003.

Full award was announced by the end of the first quarter Financial Year (FY) 2003 to cover the last two

quarter of FY 2003 and the subsequent 3 years (FY 2004-06). The final award has not been made and

interim awards were extended to cover the rest of FY 2003.

What constitutes a divisible pool for allocation of local share varies somewhat across provinces

with the general practices that provinces make some exceptions from Provincial Consolidated Fund.

The local share of the divisible pool is as follows:

Punjab

39.8% to districts

Sindh

40.0% to districts

NWFP

40.0% to districts

Balochistan

31.0% to districts.

Population is the most important indicator used in all provincial awards.

Responsibilities

Following are responsibilities of local government:

Elementary and secondary education,

Primary and secondary health,

Agriculture and intra-district roads.

Towns and tehsils have been assigned municipal service responsibilities-including local

roads and streets, water supply systems and sewers and sanitation.

Although union administrations have not been assigned any major service-delivery

responsibilities, they are responsible for small-scale development projects

Separation of powers

The office of the deputy commissioner was the local face of the government. This office performed

executive, magisterial, judicial and development function. It had all administrative powers to implement

official policy. The creation of the office of the District Coordination Officer has also entailed the abolition

of the office of the district magistrate and the cadre of executive magistrate under deputy commissioner.

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With devolution, all judicial powers of the executive magistracy are now vested in the judiciary;

each civil judge now also acts as a judicial magistrate, while the District and Session Judge exercises the

powers of the erstwhile district magistrate.

The police that functioned under the deputy commissioner now are placed under nazim.

Political Reform

As it has been mentioned that the Devolution Plan also aimed at political reforms. The purpose of

political reforms was to introduce young people in politics. Thus a union council which has a population of

25,000, some 126,462 new union councilors were elected. A union council is composed of 21 directly

elected members. The union nazim becomes member of Zila council and naib nazim member of Tehsil

council. The remaining 19 seats are as follows:

12 Muslim seats (4 are reserved for women), 6 seats for peasants and workers (2 are reserved for

women), 1 seat for minority communities.

Concepts

Citizen Community Board:

These are bodies at district level that oversee the work of

government departments.

District Coordination Officer:

Is an officer at district level that has to coordinate the

functions of department at district level.

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