PM Imran Khan’s initiative for civil service reforms appreciated

Islamabad : The Former Chief Secretaries’ Committee has appreciated the initiative of Prime Minister Imran Khan to bring about the much-needed changes in the areas of service structure, career progression, capacity building and improving the standards of efficiency and professionalism of civil servants, says a press release.

A meeting of the Former Chief Secretaries’ Committee, chaired by former Chief Secretary KP Azam Khan here, discussed the recently announced Civil Service Reforms in the overall context of improving the service delivery by the officers of the PAS.

The meeting took note of some provisions of the reforms. On the issue of rationalising, the cadre strength/number of posts of PAS in the provinces, the meeting was of the view that it was a settled issue as the federal government and provincial governments had worked out the formula of sharing of the field posts long time back in 1954 and there existed no impelling need to revisit it now.

Besides, reduction of posts (600) in the provinces is likely to cause dissatisfaction among the junior officers who would be denied their professional requirement of orientation of socio-economic and other issues facing the people which are well identified during the field postings, the meeting observed. Thus some ‘disconnect’ may occur between the practical experience of the officers, in identification of issues existing on ground and their resolution through policy intervention, subsequently, it noted, and urged the government to re-examine the issue in its entirety so as to avoid serious ramifications in the area of administrative management.

The meeting also deliberated on the issue of induction of technocrats in the cadre of PAS. It was recommended that no such ‘lateral entry’ of other professionals or technical experts be made in the PAS cadre as it will disturb the structure, seniority and promotion prospects of officers belonging to one unified cadre, who are inducted through a highly competitive merit-based system. Besides, being a federal service having the title and nomenclature of All Pakistan Unified Grade, it provides a distinct job description of posts, hence its composition must not be disturbed, the committee noted.