In todays Dawn there is a letter to the editor about restructuring suggestions on CSS. I am pasting that letter and want comments from all the members.

CSS: suggestions for restructuring

THE CSS comprises various service groups such as district management group, office management group, foreign service, customs, income tax, police, audit and accounts.
All these groups except for the DMG and the police are federal services. After the passage of the 18th Amendment, provinces have been given their due recognition. As law and order is a provincial subject, there is no reason for keeping the DMG and the police as federal services. It is time the structure of civil services was modified.

I propose restructuring of civil services on the following lines:

Officers belonging to federal services should be recruited by the FPSC as is being done at present.

Recruitment to all civil services belonging to provinces, including the DMG and police service, should be done by provincial governments through Provincial Public Service Commissions.

The provincial services should be designated as Provincial Civil Service (PCS); the Provincial Service of Police (PSP), Provincial Service of Engineers (PSE), Provincial Health Service (PHS), Provincial Education Service (PES), Provincial Forest Service (PFS), etc.

All federal and provincial officers should serve in their respective cadres up to the level of grade 20 which should be the highest level in the respective cadres. For example, federal service officers will rise to the level of joint secretary, commissioner customs, commissioner income tax, etc., while in the provinces a DMG officer will rise to the level of commissioner of a civil division, a PSE officer will become chief engineer of the department, a PHS a director health services, PES a director education, while present DIG of police can be redesignated as divisional commissioner of the police.

All grade 20 officers of federal and provincial services should be eligible for opting for a newlycreated unified all-Pakistan Service, Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS), comprising grade 21 and grade 22 officers. All grade 20 officers opting for the unified service should go through written tests and interviews held by the FPSC.

On selection to the PAS in grade 21 and after attending the requisite training at the Administrative Staff College, officers should be posted as additional secretaries in the federal government, secretaries in the provincial governments, provincial police commissioners, chairmen of autonomous bodies or equivalent posts.

These are simplistic but handson recommendations which should be properly drawn by experts. These suggestions would not find favour with the DMG class as they have enjoyed unbridled authority over the affairs of the state since independence.

Having been recruited into the district management cadre, the role of DMG officers should have been restricted to the management of a district or a division but, on the other hand, they appropriated to themselves a bigger role of managing the state. This latter responsibility is now proposed to be assigned to a galaxy of deserving officers selected from all federal and provincial services. FAQIR AHMAD PARACHA Peshawar