Implementation of 5pc quota for minorities in PA secretariat jobs sought

KARACHI: An application has been filed with Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Khan Durrani requesting him to ensure that five per cent of vacant positions in the assembly secretariat are filled by applicants from religious minorities.

Sindh Assembly MPA on a reserved seat for minorities, Surender Valasai, who belongs to the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, has filed the application. The Sindh government had reserved a five per cent job quota for minorities in its different departments, subsidiary agencies and bodies some eight years ago.

On February 3, 2015, the then house of the Sindh Assembly had also unanimously passed a resolution on this subject. The resolution was moved by an Opposition MPA of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, Nand Kumar Goklani. His resolution stated: “This House resolves that the Provincial Government ensure implementation of 5% quota reserved for minorities in employment in government jobs in the province.”

On February 6, 2015 the Sindh Assembly secretary sent a circular containing the contents of the resolution to the relevant senior officials of the Sindh government for the due implementation of the resolution.

The circular was sent to the then Sindh chief secretary, the Sindh government’s secretary for Services, General Administration, and Coordination Department, and the Sindh government Secretary for Minorities’ Affairs Department.

Talking to The News, Goklani, who has once again become an MPA on a seat reserved for minorities, said more than three years had passed but he was yet to get any evidence that showed that the Sindh government had implemented his resolution.

He said the previous PPP government had itself issued orders to ensure five per cent quota for minorities in government jobs, but it has failed to implement it until now.

“Once it is implemented by PPP’s own government in Sindh, then we could expect from the federal government to ensure its implementation,” the PML-F MPA said.

According to Goklani, he had raised the issue several times in the last Sindh Assembly by putting questions during the question hour session and by submitting call to attention notices, asking for information on government departments where the quota had been implemented.