Mastung town has a Municipal Committee. The Committee has seventeen elected members. Two seats are allocated to women’ and one to a labourer’s representative. They are indirectly elected by the 17 elected members. There is one Chief Officer representing the government. He assists the chairman and members in the day to day affairs. An Assistant Director supervises the administrative staff.

In the rural areas, there are seven Union Councils, which all are represented in the District Council. The traditional decision making structure at village level used to involve an arbitration committee called Jirga, which members used to be nominated by the Political Agent and included Nawab, Sardar, Arbab, Takari and notables. The decisions made by the Jirga were honoured due to social pressure. However, there decisions would have to be endorsed by the Political Agent.

The Union Council is the basic unit of local government. The number of councillors in each Union Council varies from place to place. It depends on the size of population residing in the area. Union Councils cover a population ranging from 10,000 to 15,000. There are two seats reserved for women and one for a labourers representative. The other members are directly elected by the district population. There are seven Union Councils functioning in district Mastung; Soroaz, Sheikh Wasil, Kud Kucha, Kanak, Dasht, Kardgap and Splengi. The major function of the Union Council is to solve the problems of the people at the grassroots level. Because councillors have close relationship with the people, they can assist them in solving their problems. The Union Councils, due to absence of funds are not able to play their due role in the development process. The major constraint in their working is that they are unable to generate funds. They also do not get any grants from the government.

There is no Town Committee in district Mastung.

The district has one Municipal Committee for Mastung town. The town is divided into seventeen wards and from each ward one representative is elected for the Municipal Committee. Elections have been held in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992. The elected members are called councillors. The councillors elect the two women and the labourers representative. Thus the number of Councillors in Municipal Committee Mastung is 20. The major source of income of Municipal Committee is from octroi; other sources of income include taxes and rents. In 1996 total revenue was about Rs.30 Lakh. Currently, the Municipal Committee is facing financing problems. Its income is hardly sufficient for its non-development expenditure which includes the salaries of the Municipal Committee staff, office equipment, sanitation expenses and maintenance of two tractors for garbage collection.

The District Council consists of twelve councillors, out of which seven are elected from the Union Councils, two seats are reserved for women, two for labourers representatives and one for a farmers representative. They are elected by the elected councillors from the Union Councils. The District Council plays a very important role in the development of rural areas, particularly in the development and maintenance of infrastructure. The Mastung District Council has planned various development projects. The main sources of income of the District Council are Zila tax and grants from the provincial government. Currently, all District Councils have been suspended by the government.

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