1
         THE POLITICS OF DEVOLUTION
2

• MULTIPLE CONTEXTS
• Development challenge
• The rhetoric of good governance
• Military governments quest for political
  legitimacy
• The demonstration of a reform agenda

3

• ASPECTS
• Territorial Organisation of union councils,
  talukas and districts as devolution units
•    Political Elections of representatives to
  respective councils
•    Administrative Organisational restructuring
  and placements
•      Financial Fiscal Transfers vs resource
  generation
•     Legal local government laws and
  implementation - LGOs    

4

• ISSUES and CHALLENGES
• Devolution in a political vacuum
• Devolution in the absence of democratisation
•       Devolution in a legal vaccum
  Constitutional Protection without endorsement of
  Parliament     
• Devolution and federalism horizontal
  sharing of power verses vertical
  transfer of power

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SHOCKS TO THE SYSTEM          9/11         
referendum          elections in a legal vacuum
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• STATE OF DISTRICT GOVERNMENT IN KHAIRPUR
• a direct territorial field of the power centre
  in the province
• DPO/DCO agents of provincial government in
  opposition to Zila Nazim
• Crisis of governance in the district

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STRUCTURAL          Relationship with the
provincial government Problematic
position of Zila Nazim          Conflict ridden
relationships between Nazims, Naibnazims,
councillors          Councillors directly
elected yet most powerless          Taluka
Councils outside the system          The
unsettled problem of town committees
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ADMINISTRATIVE          Uncontrolled Transfers
and Postings          Transfers/Postings
political power instrument          Low Capacity
of Officers at District Level          Hardship
posts          Double Jurisdictions between
provincial and local authorities         
Overcentralisation and bureaucratisation in the
DCOs and EDOs          Law and order and the
police
9

FINANCIAL          Vertical Fiscal
Transfers          Very few tax
resources          Financial Award