PCS, DMG Issue
Friday, September 24, 2010
By Babar Dogar
It seems the negotiations between the PCS officers association and the committee - constituted by Punjab chief minister to resolve the issues of 1200 PCS, PSS and PMS officers of the province - have reached a deadlock.
The inconclusive meeting held after inordinate delay has dismayed majority of the provincial officers.
Refusal of the committee to address the core issues of the provincial services has strengthened the perception among the provincial officers that the committee is more responsive to the vested interests of the District Management Group than the genuine rights of the provincial officers.
The committee is reportedly ready only to give peripheral concessions to the provincial officers, toeing the DMG line.
The meeting of the committee was held on Wednesday, with Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa,Advisor to the CM, in the chair. Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, Senator Parvez Rashid, Mian Ata Maneka and Shaikh Alauddin also attended the meeting.
It was one of the numerous meetings held by the committee during the last many months and remained inconclusive, as usual.
The meeting discussed issues regarding DMG officers occupying GOR-I, restrained entry of the provincial officers in the Civil Officers Mess, erratic postings, taking up power-sharing formula of the provincial and the federal services with the federal government, but failed to remove any bottleneck.
It is learnt that controversy has developed over recording of minutes of previous meeting of the Committee which decided various issues. Most of the contentious issues were decided in the meeting of the committee held immediately after province-wide assemblage of provincial officers.
The PCS officers allege that the minutes were differently recorded by S&GAD and later got approved from the chief minister.
The minutes were not even shared with the PCS officers association. According to PCS officers, it was decided in the meeting that DMG officers who had been transferred out of the province would retain the official accommodation in Lahore only for one year. However, the minutes got approved from the CM had stipulate that they could retain house for two years.
The stance of the PCS officers is that such a concession should be given to the DMG officers only in the federal capital where they belong to, not in the provinces.
The previous decision regarding the revision of controversial seat-sharing formula between the provinces and the federation has also been omitted from the minutes.
It was decided by the committee that the federal government would be requested to revise the formula.
PCS officers allege that the formula has no legal basis as it is neither part of any law nor is notified. No PCS officer was ever consulted while determining the formula and DMG officers and their cohorts acted as judge, jury and the executioner. They allege that DMG got allocated for themselves seats double than their sanctioned cadre strength which is unparalleled in the entire world. The other point on which DMG is not conceding even an inch and on which they have got the support of the political leadership, is the issue of erratic postings. It has been long-standing demand of the PCS officers that erratic postings should be ended and officers given posts according to their grades. However, almost all the DMG officers in grade 17 and 18 are working on one-step higher posts.
In many districts, grade-18 DMG officers have been posted as DCOs and their senior PCS officers in grade-19 are working under them as EDOs. The Higher Education, they claim, would have been posted as a section officer had he been at the Federal Secretariat as he was in grade-18 when posted as the secretary. Almost all the additional secretaries belonging to DMG are in grade-18.
Another long-standing complaint of the PCS officers that they are being relegated to unimportant posts has also not been addressed. There is not even a single PCS Commissioner in the entire province; not a single PCS secretary amongst 43 administrative secretaries. Majority of the DCOs are also from DMG.
The PCS officers who have made it to the higher grades of 19 and 20 are posted on unimportant posts. The PCS officers are not ready to buy the rhetoric that there are not suitable officers for posting on such posts. They say that the DMG officers surrounding the CM have poisoned his ears against the PCS. The apartheid-like treatment of shutting the door of the Punjab Civil Officers Mess on the provincial officers still continues.
The PCS officers association has already brought all the provincial associations, including PMA, Professors and Lecturers Association, Secretariat Associations and scores of other associations, under one umbrella.
It has been reliably learnt that, after cobbling similar coalitions in other provinces, the provincial services are planning to stage sit-in in front of the Parliament building and protest against what they claim is illegal and unconstitutional seat-sharing formula of 1993.
Talking to this scribe, PCS officers association president Rai Manzoor Nasir said that the provincial services had been driven against wall through relentless exploitation during the last 63 years. Now, the provincial officers would not sit still until they eliminated the gross injustice and exploitation. He strongly protested against DMG officers for changing previous meeting minutes in which leverage was given to the DMG officers.
Source:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrin...?ID=6348&Cat=5