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Old Monday, December 13, 2010
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Thanks Usman.

Railways is an excellent group because firstly its officers enjoy very rapid promotion at least up to BS-19. Thereafter, there is every chance that they will get promoted to BS-20 and BS-21. In recent times, Railway Officers have even reached the rank of federal secretary. In most cities like Lahore, Karachi, Rawapindi, Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad, Quetta, Sukkur, there are residential colonies for Railway Officers which are renowned throughout the bureaucracy for being the best. Additionally, if you work in a Division instead of head-office you may get a car pretty soon. The best thing about Railways is the number of people you manage. A BS-17 officers of Railways may have up to 300 persons directly working under him/her. Officers (even a BS-17 officer) tend to get up to 5-6 personnel at their residence. The downside of Railways is the competition CSS-qualified officers face from Technical Officers (Engineering cadre) which directly competes with them for management positions. Prior to 1973 civil service reforms, Railway (Transportation and Commercial) group was known as Pakistan Railways Service (PRS) and was managed by CSS Officers with the engineering cadre acting as support/auxilliary staff. In fact, the problem with Railways arose after CSS-qualified officers who were generalist managers were somewhat sidelined in favour of Engineers who did not turn out to be good managers. The other problem with Railways, is the threat of corporatisation, if one perceives it as a threat. Due to mismanagement over the past three decades, it has become a huge white elephant and next on the IMF agenda is its privatisaion or corporatisation. In my opinion, corporatisation will be an opportunity for Railway Officers to become more professional and better trained as managers besides receiving higher salaries and perks. Their discretionary powers may however get cut down but they should not worry by that as it would only be a temporary phase. Indian Railways made a significant turnaround in the previous decade and now not only their officers are enjoying higher salaries they are exercising their immense powers and viewed with prestige by other government servants in India.

Postal Group is also an excellent group. Although promotion prospects are slow, cars and residential accommodations are easily available. Also, at all major stations, rest houses are available. This is a group which is never in danger of getting eliminated because firstly Postal Department is now profitable and secondly due to national security reasons, Postal Department's functions cannot be outsourced to private sector. As I understand, it is the only group where a Divisional Superintendent of BS-17 has complete hiring and firing powers of all staff between BS-1 and BS-9. Also, at BS-17, you have the charge of a whole division which is a great incentive. Nowadays, postal group officers are also entitled to commission payments which they share with their subordinate staff for showing increased volume of sales.

Commerce & Trade group and information group have been hit by 18th amendment because many of their officers were working in Federal Ministries as Section Officers and Public Relations Officers respectively. With reduction in such positions due to elimination of several federal ministries, their chances of future expansion have almost been reduced to nil. That is why, I consider these groups are facing a decline. C & T group may be resurrected if the 50% quota reserved for officers of this group as Commercial Counsellors etc. in foreign missions is stricly observed. Information group can be revived if jobs in PTV and PEMRA is reserved for them. For now, this is not happening as the senior officers in these groups do not have sufficient influence on the decision-makers to bring about such changes.
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The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to Sandhurst For This Useful Post:
atifmasood (Monday, December 20, 2010), Natiq (Thursday, June 02, 2011), nustian (Monday, August 15, 2011), pisceankhan (Tuesday, October 14, 2014), Raz (Wednesday, December 15, 2010), ruman wajid (Tuesday, March 05, 2013), Usman Cheema (Monday, December 13, 2010)