New bill proposes changes to district councils

An amendment has been proposed to the existing district council law in parliament with a provision of removing the requirement for every district council to have the same number of members.

Local Government Minister Md Tajul Islam tabled the District Council (Amendment) Bill 2022, which has been forwarded to the parliamentary committee on LGRD for scrutiny. The report from the panel is expected in a week.

The existing law says every district must have 15 general members and five seats reserved for women members.

The amendment proposes to have one member from each upazila (number equal to the total number of upazilas in a district) and women members equivalent to one-third of the number of total members including the chairman.

The proposed act also removed the Election Commission from the duty of making voter lists.

It also says that the government can appoint an administrator to run the council once the district council ends its tenure.

The amendment bill is likely to be cleared by the current parliament session as most of the district councils will end their tenure this month. In that case, administrators will be posted to them.

According to the existing law, city corporation mayors and councillors, upazila council chairmen, vice chairmen, municipality mayors and councillors, and union council chairmen and members vote in the district council.

Adding a new sub-section to the law, the proposed amendment says they will be able to participate in the council meeting but will have voting rights.

The district council’s activities will also come under the close monitoring of the government according to the proposed law. The council will submit an annual report of its activities to the government within 90 days of the end of a fiscal year, it said.