PESHAWAR: Dr Asad Ali Khan has been transferred after serving as the director general of the Emergency Rescue Service, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for three and a half years and putting it on sound footing.
The provincial government ordered his transfer a few days ago and appointed Dr Khateer Ahmad, the director administration at the Emergency Rescue Service, commonly known as Rescue 1122, as the new director general.
Dr Asad Ali Khan, a BPS-19 officer from the Planning and Development Department, was made the director general of the Emergency Rescue Service when it wasn’t firmly established and was suffering from deficiencies. It didn’t have protocols and its staff felt dejected because of lack of a proper service structure. The Rescue 1122 was operating in only two districts, Peshawar and Mardan, at the time.
From seven emergency stations in Peshawar, the Rescue 1122 now has 12 stations. It had four emergency stations in Mardan and the total has now gone up to seven.
The Rescue 1122 was subsequently extended to eight more districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Along with Peshawar and Mardan, it is now operating in 10 districts. The plan was to extend the service to 19 districts, but the delays in recruitment and other factors delayed implementation. Eventually though, the service would be extend to all districts of the province.
According to sources in the Emergency Rescue Service, the service structure for employees was approved and is being implemented. They said the employees were now getting promotions and an endowment fund of Rs500 million was set up for their benefit. The Rescue 1122 employees were now entitled to the “Shuhada Package” that is given to government servants in other departments also to compensate employees who are martyred while on duty.
The sources said that service delivery protocols were introduced in Rescue 1122 and mini-ambulances, mini-fire brigade and high rising fire snorkels were acquired and put into service to improve services and reduce the time of response in case of an emergency. An effort was made to buy quality equipment and vehicles and orders were placed directly with the Toyota to buy its vehicles for use by Rescue 1122.
The Emergency Rescue Service, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also signed protocol with its counterpart in Punjab for imparting six-month training to its staff in Lahore.
During this period, the name of Rescue 1122 and the services it was offering became known and people increasingly started benefiting from it. The Pakistan Army in recognition of the services of Rescue 1122 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa began rewarding its employees by sending them to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah.
According to the sources, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak was satisfied with the performance of Rescue 1122 and on a few occasions he was quoted as saying that he has nothing against it. In fact, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led provincial government is reportedly considering using the extension of Emergency Rescue Service to 10 districts as one of its achievements while running its forthcoming election campaign.
