PESHAWAR, Oct 20: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa local government department will complete the upcoming delimitation process in 45 days under which some 4,000 local councils will be created at the grassroots level, according to the officials concerned. This will require an effort never done before in the province. The proposed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 10cal government law entails the creation of village and neighbourhood councils much smaller in size (population wise) than the existing 986 union councils. The proposed law requires the authorities concerned to complete the delimitation exercise in 60 days. The timeframe set internally by the local government department aims at completing the province`s biggest ever delimitation exercise 15 days short of the 60 day deadline set under the new law. `The local government department has started making necessary arrangements to set off the exercise once the proposed law takes effect,` said an official concerned of the provincial government. The proposed law was tabled before the provincial legislature in its recently ended session during which the draft law was sent to the assembly`s select committee concerned. The decision to postpone debate on the proposed law and send it to the House committee seeks to develop consensus about the new law among the parties with presence in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly. Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, the leading political party in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, wants to pursue its election manifesto promise of thin out the spread of local councils taking it down to village level.In this regard, the proposed law recommends the population size of each of the would-be village/neighbourhood councils to be between 2000 people and 10,000 people. At present, the union councils the third tier of local councils entail a population size of 20,000 people to 25,000 people per UC. A senior government functionary told Dawn that the exercise would be completed within the internally set deadline as the provincial delimitation authority would carve out the village (rural)/neighbourhood (urban) councils by using the last held population census data and geographic boundaries determined under the mauzajaat/patwaar khaana (land record)data. He said the deputy commissioners` offices in all 25 districts of the province had the land record which would be used for determining the territorial boundaries of 4,000 new entities at the grassroots by dividing the existing 992 union councils. `The (delimitation) drive will be carried out in accordance with the already prescribed of ficial rules,` said an official concerned. He said the initial lists of the newly carved out village and neighbourhood councils, once ready, would be notified for information of the general public through newspaper advertisements. The notification would provide an opportunity to general public and the political stakeholders to raise objections, if any, to the boundaries of the new councils. The process would complete once the objections, said the official, were looked into and the lists of village councils were finalised. The exercise would require the provincial delimitation authority to appoint district level staff in all the 25 districts of the province to carry out the field work to carve out 4000 village councils out of the existing territorial limits of the existing union councils.The exercise would require an elaborate and well organised effort since the province has never been through such an experience as the proposed law envisages that `the boundaries of a village and neighbourhood council shall not cross the limits of tehsil. However, officials concerned expressed the optimism that the task would be completed within the given timeframe. `It is not an issue, what is more challenging is to get the new law approved from the provincial assembly without which it would be difficult for the provincial government to hold the next local body elections in the province,` said an official.According to officials, Sindh and Punjab are in advanced stage of holding the LG polls in line with the Supreme Court orders. The two provinces have already completed the legislation part of the exercise by getting approved new local government laws from their respective assemblies. `We are quite behind Sindh and Punjab as they have already started the delimitation process,` said an official LG expert. The local government officials concerned of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, when asked, expressed ignorance about the funds required to carry out the delimitation exercise. A senior government functionary said financial estimates had not been prepared to evaluate the costs involved in carrying out the drive. He said district delimitation officers would be appointed in all districts and surveyors to carry out of the field work would be appointed from the workforce to be provided by the district administrations of all25 districts. `Funds would be required only for office stationary,` said an official concerned. However, he was not sure who would foot the biH of expenses to be incurred by the field staff.