No federal secretary is from Balochistan

ISLAMABAD, May 16: While Balochistan has absolutely no representation in the present pool of 40 federal secretaries, Sindh has just one and Punjab tops the list with a lion’s share, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Ahmad Bux Lehri was the last federal secretary, who retired as secretary of the Establishment Division several months back. He is now member of the Federal Public Service Commission. Presently, Pakistan’s area-wise largest province has one additional secretary Pir Bakhsh Jamali in BPS-22.
On ground, the job quota of Balochistan in federal services was enhanced from 3.5 to 6 per cent in 2009, however, it has not been reflected so far accordingly in the pool of federal secretaries.
During the Senate question hour this issue was raised by Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi and then by Senator Saeed Ghani. They alleged that the two smaller provinces were meted out injustice. The Senate Chairman, Mian Raza Rabbani, the other day, called on the State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Shiekh Aftab Ahmad to bring this matter to the notice of Prime Minister and report back to the House. Similarly, in concurrance with Mashhadi and Ghani’s concerns, Leader of the House Raja Muhammad Zafarul Haq had also promised to bring this issue to the notice of premier so that justice should be done to all.
Two senior bureaucrats, who hail from Balochistan, confirmed to this correspondent that though after the quota for their province was increased, there were now reasonable number of officers in BPS-17, 18 and 19, but the province is not represented in the federal secretaries cadre. “In order to ensure Balochistan rightly benefits from the quota, the unfortunate practice of non-locals obtaining Balochistan’s domicile will have to be discouraged. In the present lot of officers from our province, almost half of them have fake domiciles and this problem needs to be fixed to end sense of deprivation among officers from the province,” they maintained.
Mashhadi said he was confident justice would be done to the officers, belonging to Sindh and Balochistan, after it would be brought to the notice of Prime Minister approval authority.