Islamabad Set for New Municipal Structure Under Local Government Amendment Bill
The proposed framework replaces Islamabad’s Metropolitan Corporation with three Town Corporations, restructures Union Council elections and delimitation, introduces a mayor and two deputy mayors for each town, and expands provisions for administrators and federal oversight.
ISLAMABAD: Details of the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) framework have emerged, outlining a major restructuring of the federal capital’s municipal system by replacing the Metropolitan Corporation model with three Town Corporations and revising the structure of Union Councils, local elections and mayoral representation.
The provisions largely originate from the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) Ordinance, 2026, promulgated in January. The official Gazette confirms that references to the “Metropolitan Corporation” in the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government Act, 2015 were to be replaced by “Town Corporation” or “Town Corporations.”
The matter returned to the spotlight on Thursday, September 3, when the National Assembly Standing Committee on Interior approved the Islamabad local government legislation, with reports saying PPP members opposed the measure and planned to submit a dissenting note.
Three Town Corporations, Revised Union Council Structure
Under the proposed structure, Islamabad Capital Territory would consist of three Town Corporations, with each town designed, as far as practicable, around the territorial limits of a National Assembly constituency. Each corporation would contain a number of Union Councils notified by the government.
Union Council delimitation would take into account population equality, the latest official census and administrative convenience. The Election Commission of Pakistan would delimit and notify Union Councils in accordance with the prescribed legal framework. The government would also be able, on the recommendation of the Ministry of Interior, to increase or decrease the number of Union Councils, subject to statutory conditions.
Each Town Corporation would have a Mayor and two Deputy Mayors, while chairpersons of all Union Councils falling within that town would become its general members. Reserved representation provided in the ordinance includes four women, one peasant/worker, one trader/businessman, one youth member and one non-Muslim member.
New Electoral Mechanism and Mayoral Selection
The electoral mechanism also changes substantially. Under the January ordinance, an entire Union Council becomes a multi-member ward for the election of general members. Each voter casts one vote for a general-member candidate, and the nine candidates receiving the highest number of votes are elected.
The Chairman and Vice-Chairman of a Union Council would subsequently be elected jointly from among the council’s members by its general and reserved-seat members. A Union Council chairman would automatically become a general member of the respective Town Corporation.
At the town level, members of the corporation would elect the Mayor and two Deputy Mayors as joint candidates, with only members of the Town Corporation eligible to contest those positions.
Another significant provision concerns periods when elected local governments are not functioning. The amended framework allows the federal government to appoint an administrator to exercise the powers and perform the functions of the local government until an elected local government assumes office.
The legislation also contains provisions governing local taxation and federal oversight. A local government or an administrator in its absence—may propose specified taxes, fees, rates, rents, tolls, charges or surcharges, but tax proposals are subject to government vetting. Where a proposal originates from an administrator, additional parliamentary scrutiny applies under the ordinance.
The amendments further provide that directions issued by the federal government to a local government or administrator would be binding.
The restructuring has already had electoral consequences. Following promulgation of the ordinance in January, the Election Commission withdrew the previously announced Islamabad local government election programme, specifically citing changes to both the local-government structure and the mode of elections.
The changes represent one of the most substantial reorganisations of Islamabad’s municipal governance since the ICT Local Government Act was enacted in 2015, shifting the capital away from a single metropolitan corporation toward a decentralised three-town arrangement.
