Font Size:     

Local government is recognized as the nursery of democracy. In Pakistan, it has been the victim of three enemies: military coup, incompetent politicians and corrupt bureaucracy. However, stranglehold of bureaucracy has corroded the local government system from within. Even if 18th amendment provides for the devolution of administrative, political, and financial powers, higher bureaucracy has ironically been hostile to local government. The civilian government’s delay in law-making and reluctance in conducting elections on time has given an edge to bureaucracy to dominate local government. LGO 2001 was an effort to subordinate Civil Servant to elected representative, but this too couldn’t escape the stranglehold of the bureaucracy. Local Government Act 2013 doesn’t also devolve adequate power and empowers bureaucracy as a major actor at grassroots level. Thus, this paper predominantly delves into the nature of relationship between Civil Servants and Local Government to identify the factorsfacilitating conflict between two actors at grassroots level.