The first meeting of provincial assemblies, which is a must for state legislators to be enlisted for the National Assembly vote, will take a month to convene from the appointment of governors.

The government is most likely to appoint the governors, the ceremonial heads of the provinces with the authority to call the provincial assembly meeting, within a week.

The Election Commission has said it will take around a week since the appointment of governors to hand over the list of elected members of the provinces to the authorities.

The constitution gives the governors 20 days to call the session of the assembly since the final results of provincial assembly elections are declared.

This means it will take some 27 days for the provincial assemblies to hold their first meeting and the elected representatives to get the status of provincial lawmakers. Provincial Assembly members are part of the electoral college that elects 56 of the 59 members of the National Assembly.

After the first meeting, the provincial assemblies will form the committees which will function as mini assemblies.

An experts’ team formed by the Parliament Secretariat under Joint-secretary Bharat Raj Gautam has recommended that each province should have five such committees.

The study shows that each assembly will have 47 permanent officials including five gazetted first class officers while 20 other non-gazetted staffers could be hired on contract basis. The estimated annual cost for operation of provincial assemblies and their secretariats is Rs2.55 billion.