CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday decided to extend the enhanced 50 per cent reservation for women in the matter of rotation for the office of Panchayat Sarpanch, as well as Chairperson of Panchayat Samitis and Zila Parishad.
The ordinance will be submitted to the Punjab Governor within seven days of Cabinet approval. The state government had enhanced reservation for women in these bodies from 33 to 50 percent last year. The cabinet has now approved an amendment to -"The Punjab Panchayati Raj Act 1994-" and -"The Punjab Reservation for Office of Sarpanches and Gram Panchayats and Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of Panchayat Samitis and Zila Parishad Rules, 1994-".
As per the ordinance, the principle of rotation for the purpose of reservation of offices under sections 12, 102 and 106 of 'The Punjab Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, would commence from the first election to be held after the commencement of the Act.
Following the publication of census, the number of directly elected members/chairmen and vice chairmen of Panchayat Samitis and rotation for reservation of seats and offices for different categories will be determined on the basis of population of panchayat samiti area at the census, and rotation of seats and offices will be made at the time of every general election. This rotation would be subject to the condition that determination of a number of seats and offices will not affect the existing composition of the Panchayat Samitis until the expiry of the term of office of elected members then in office.
After the commencement of Act 12 of 2017, the first reservation for the offices of Chairmen/Vice-Chairmen of the Zila Parishads and Panchayat Samitis would be made in accordance with the provision of Rule 4 and 5. In the subsequent elections, all newly created constituencies would be bunched together at the end of unreserved constituencies of the last roster.
In accordance with the principle of rotation reservation in subsequent elections will start from a first non-reserved constituency in this roster in the order Scheduled Caste-Scheduled Caste Women-Women. The remaining constituencies would be unreserved. In another decision, the cabinet also decided to insert a provision in Punjab Civil Services Rules, Volume-I, Part-I, rule 4.1 in sub-rule(1) after the second provision, regarding pay fixation on the new appointment, when already in service of Punjab Government.
As per the amendment, when a government employee at the time of new appointment is in the service of Punjab government and holds lien on his previous post, he shall, during the period of his probation on new post, be entitled to the pay, not exceeding the pay he was drawing on that earlier post, on which he held lien. The cabinet also approved the annual administrative report on the defence services welfare department for the year 2017-18.