Mianwali District - Administration

Administration

The district is administratively divided into three tehsils and 56 union councils:

Deputy commissioners served as the head of the district until 2004. The first deputy commissioner was Captain A. J. O'Brien and the first district judge was Sardar Balwant Singh. The system continued even after the creation of Pakistan as a sovereign nation. It was not until the year 2000 that the new local government system was introduced and three basic changes were implemented:

• Divisions which used to be the third tier of the government were abolished and more autonomy was given to the districts with the aim of decentralization of power.
• With this new status of the districts, nazims were to become the administrators of the districts, with more authoritative powers.
• The post of D.C. was abolished with the aim of putting an end to bureaucratic rule; however, the bureaucracy was offered an olive branch by creating the new post of District Coordinating Officer. The nazim remained the main elected representative and administrator while the D.C.O.s served as representatives of the government.

It borders eight district: Attock District in the north, Chakwal District in the northeast, Khushab District in the east, and Bhakkar District in the south, while Lakki Marwat lies to the west, Kohat and Karak districts to the northwest and Dera Ismail Khan District to the southwest.

In November 1901, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was carved out of Punjab and the present-day towns of Mianwali, Isa Khel, Kalabagh, and Kundian were separated from Bannu District (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa); hence a new district was made with the headquarters in Mianwali city and placed in Punjab province.