Civil service reforms

The government has embarked on a new journey of reforms in the civil service. Ostensibly, these reforms are aiming at rationalizing the cadre strength of the Pakistan Administration Service (PAS). With the reduction of cadre strength of PAS officers in the provinces from around 1700 to just about 1100, the provinces are likely to face a human resource crunch that the federal government will impose on them under the guise of rationalization. The number of available officers will decrease and various departments of the provinces will come under pressure to fill the gap on their own. The post sharing formula that the federation and the provinces agreed to in 1993 applied to full cadre strength and the provinces intimated the sanctioned seats of the PAS in their respective departments.

Now, after nearly three decades, radical reform is on its way and the citizens of Pakistan do not have much say in it. Even the previous number of PAS officers was not sufficient to fill all positions, and there has been a persistent shortage of officers in several departments. What the current government has been doing for the past more than two years is: identifying the post where PAS officers have not been not posted in many years, and then subtracting them from the total strength to reduce the number. The number of posts that are likely to face the axe are in the BS-17 to BS-20 category, which form the backbone of nearly all departments in government service. This reduction will simply pretend to show that there is no shortage of PAS officers, as the corresponding number of posts will be abolished for the PAS. Now the provinces will have to manage their work with depleted strength which is likely to affect their performance in nearly all areas of government service.

Another aspect of these changes is that, in addition to nearly 700 seats reduced for the provinces, the federal government has decided to induct over 50 new BS-19 officers of the Provincial Management Service (PMS) and Provincial Civil Service into the PAS against the cadre strength of service in the Federal Secretariat. Since these alterations will have a far-reaching impact on the performance of the provinces, they needed to be discussed threadbare in parliament and in provincial assemblies. This is something that the government should not leave to a select committee alone. The government must realize the significance of debate in this matter. Going headlong into such a major reshuffle is not advisable and the opposition must take this issue up in the National Assembly and the Senate. The citizens of Pakistan have a right to have full information about these reforms as they are the ones who have been suffering from bad governance at all levels.