LAHORE: The Punjab government has plans afoot to provide more funds to the local governments than the money currently being given to respective districts for smooth sailing of the new administration system.

The Punjab government is working on developing a `modern allocation formula` to take care of the needs of respective districts in terms of fiscal equalization and equity.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif is expected to give a final go-ahead to the funds disbursement formula being finetuned by a provincial finance committee comprising finance department officials, elected representatives and economists.

While the local governments will be funded through the Provincial Finance Commission award, the committee is making efforts to keep the funds distribution formula `simple` for its easy implementation by the respective local governments.

`We don`t want to make this system complex but simple,` a committee member told Dawn.

He states that the committee is making formula-based recommendations to meet different needs of different types of local governments in the province -based on population density, poverty element and backwardness.As there is no authentic data and information available about the population and other indicators in the province, the committee is suggesting that variation of cost should be considered while meeting the fiscal needs of dense population as well as poverty in different local governments in the province.

In order to avoid political hullabaloo, a source says the Punjab government wants that funds should reach the respective local governments well before time so that they could begin working without facing much hurdles.

The source said it had been decided that respective local governments would get more funds than already being given to respective districts.

While the Punjab government is striving to put local governments in place by the first week of January, officials concerned say the exercise may enter second week of next month due to finalization of many things, including repealing a clause from the Civil Administration Act 2013 that empowered the provincial government to work in districts, framing of rules for education and health authorities, human resource deployment and distribution of assets.

Since the district coordination officers will be replaced by deputy commissioners having a role of monitoring all departments within a district concerned, it is learnt that Punjab along with other prov-inces has requested the federal government to amend the CrPC and restore magisterial powers of DCs.

Meanwhile, with a one-time transition grant of around Rs1,000 million, the respective districts under the supervision of DCOs are already sprucing up offices for the new local governments, including 4,025 union councils, and procuring furniture, computers and other infrastructurefacilities.

Local government employees are also being deployed besides distribution ofassets.

Sources claim that there was a shortage of at least 10,000 employees for the deployment in all local governments in the province.

The Punjab finance department has reportedly asked all DCOs in the province to finalise schedules for the establishments based on sanctioned strength vis-à-vis actual number reflected in respective budget estimates of the district government.

The department has also sought information about filled and vacant number of posts as well as posts on SNE/permanent/contract basis.

Stating that such information will facilitate the respective accounts officers to ensure smooth payment of salaries to the staff during transition in respective streams, the finance department warns that non-completion of this exercise may result into non-payment of monthly salary to certain employees of the district governments.