Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government would celebrate 'Provincial autonomy day' on the completion of devolution process successfully under 18th Amendment of the Constitution today (Friday). For smooth completion of devolution process, the Federal Government had constituted an Implementation Commission within 15 days of the commencement of the Constitution 18th Amendment Act, 2010.
The 18th Amendment of the constitution stipulates that "on the omission of the Concurrent Legislative List, the process of devolution of the matter mentioned in the said list to the provinces shall be completed by June 30, 2011. The Implementation Commission completed devolution process on June 28, 2011 and a total of 17 ministries were devolved to the provinces under 18th Amendment of the Constitution.
Implementation Commission held 68 formal meetings and tried its level best to discuss in detail each and every issue. In first phase, which was completed in December 2010, the Commission devolved five ministries including Special Initiative, Zakat and Ushr, Population, Youth Affairs and Local Government to the provinces.
The second phase was completed in April, 2011 in which five ministries, including education, social welfare and special education, culture, tourism and livestock and dairy were transferred to the provinces by the Commission.
In the third and final phase, the Commission devolved as many as seven ministries including environment, food and agriculture, health, labour and manpower, minorities' affairs, sports and women development to the provinces. After devolution process some issues such as funds of the EOBI, Work Welfare Funds, NCHD, NEF, Drug Regularity Authority and others need to be resolved in Council of Common Interest (CCI). No meeting has been scheduled so far though the chief minister Punjab requested that a CCI meeting be scheduled in a letter to the Prime Minister on June 25.
On 29 June the Punjab cabinet endorsed the provincial government's view of filing a reference in the Supreme Court if the federal government failed to immediately convene CCI meeting. After completion of the devolution process successfully, the PPP announced that July 1 would be celebrated as 'Day for Provincial Autonomy' with events, music and special initiatives.