Currently, a tussle is going on between Provincial Management Service (PMS) Officers and District Management Group (DMG) in the province of Punjab. In this scenario I would lie to divert attention of the readers towards the core issue. What is real problem that encourages the PMS Officers to the agitation that resulted in registration of FIR against 73 PMS Officers?
I will start from brief historical background of both services; before partition, Indian Civil Service (ICS) was formed under the British Raj to rule the people of sub continent ruthlessly. ICS, after partition, was recreated as Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) up till 1974. DMG is the successor of Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP).
In the same way, when One Unit is disbanded Provincial Civil Service (PCS) is created to run the affairs of all four provinces. PCS is further divided into two cadre i.e, PCS Executive and Provincial Secretariat Service (PSS). After devolution, under the District Government System PCS cadre is re-organized as PMS (Provincial Management Service) in 2004. The main purpose of creation of this service is enabling the provinces to run the affairs of the provinces themselves under the Devolution Plan (2001). But in reality this remains a cry in wilderness. The powerful DMG remains at helm of affairs in all the four provinces resulting in diminishing the recruitment as well as promotion of the PMS/PCS/PSS. This situation is more aggravated in Punjab where the political leadership totally refuses to listen to the just demands of provincial services officers.
The best solution of this situation is by following the basic principle of devolution of power and provincial autonomy as envisaged in the 18th amendment of the constitution.