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.

DMG
PSP

m crazy about these 2 .. i wont join any other group

__________________
Forget safety.Live where you fear to live.Destroy your reputation.Be notorious

@ Sandhurst
Excellent work brother hats of to you for providing such a valuable and rare (because very few people knows that much about these groups) information to the aspirants. This would prove to be really helpful for the aspirants in the selection of preference order. I request you to copy paste this information in the sub-forums of Railways and Postal group so that more and more candidates can get benefit from it.

Regards,

__________________
It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself!!!!

DMG
Police
Customs
IRS

__________________
Love is my Shield,Truth is my Sword,Brain is my Crown,Smile is my Treasure and I'm a Queen;
Quitters never win and Winners never quit..!!!

salam

i have qualified CSS-2010 and i am also appearing in 2011.But yarr i am not feeling motivated at all.Anyway,my order of preference for CSS-2010 and 2011 is going to be the following

Police
DMG
PCG
IRS
Postal
Railways
PAAS
CTG
IG
OMG

Regards,

__________________
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ~ John Stuart Mill

According to my analysis about the CSP groups/services.. the descending order of preferences should be;

1. DMG
2. PSP
3. FSP
4. PCS
5. IRS
6. PAAS
7. MLCG
8. CTG
9. OMG
10. RTCG
11. PG
12. IG

However If any person, who wants some local influence in terms of power.. he should opt for PSP and then DMG.
For person who want to support their families and they are the eldest one, shouldnt opt for FSP and should be kept at 5.
For person who are just lover of bungalows and a car with a wife in a peaceful environment.. they should opt for MLCG at 3.
Above strategy is for those, who want to excel and progress in the world of true bureaucracy.. No group is bad.. To be a CSP is the prestige and at last u r going to reach the highest possible post in that department (if age permits).
any way.. bestEST of luck.. tc

To all those who are still keeping PCS above IRS, any particular reason for this?

Yes, there is bundle oflogic reasons behind it..
1. PCS is the service which has a definite infrastucture in terms of their powers, perks n previliges (houses,vehicles,servants), staff including force etc. It means when u r going to join u will get the desired facilities. warna to Bs-18, 19 man to har cheez har group man mil hi jati ha.
2. Baqi rahi IRS ki baat they dont have definite infrastructure but they will start to make it now. It means u will strive for that from now and ur juniors will definitely prefer tis service.
3. So at this level, PCS should be preffered over IRS.
tc

yes mr raja is abolutely right that customs officers enjoy different facilities even in BPS 17....while in IRS in BPS 18....IRS ,ll have to wait more to get what customs already enjoying....
you can even ask someone serving in either to draw a comparison of IRS and CUSTOMS,he ,ll second to it.

I am not sure where Dharejo ji got his information from.

There is hardly a housing colony for customs officers. So his information about houses and servants is absolutely incorrect. Yes they do get cars which are mostly non-custom paid (NCP) vehicles which they use but no other extra-ordinary infrastructure or facilities are available. During raids, they get staff like superintendent etc. but so do IRS Officers who have support of uniformed inspectors and powers to arrest and confiscate. There are colonies for senior level IRS Officers in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. Also, for the junior level officers, houses are easily available in Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Sukur, Quetta, Hyderabad and Abbottabad and Transit Accommodations are being built at Islamabad, Quetta and Hyderabad in first phase of an IMF funded project. In smaller stations like Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Multan, Quetta, Sukkur, Abbottabad and Bahawalpur, even BS-17 officers of 36th common have been given vehicles.

The reality is that Pakistan Customs Service is now on the decline. Many of its brightest officers have opted for IRS. Also, whereas 32nd common of former income tax group (now IRS) was promoted to BS-18, 6 months back, their customs colleagues are still languishing in BS-17. This has severely affected the promotion prospects of Pakistan Customs Service (PCS) Officers in the near future. Whereas, there are only 147 approved seats of BS-18 in PCS, the current number of officers serving in PCS in BS-18 are 178. This means that those officers who are freshly recruited to BS-17 will have to wait 7 or 8 years for promotion to next grade. The approved cadre strength of IRS in BS-21 is 44 which is even more than DMG.

The anti-smuggling powers delegated previously by Pakistan Customs (PCS) to Pakistan Rangers and FC and withdrawn in view of expansion of PCS in border regions have also been returned to Pakistan Rangers and FC which signifies that there is no scope of further expansion in customs seats in the near future.

In the long term, Pakistan Customs Service will no longer remain a revenue collection agency because revenue from customs and regulatory duties is already being phased out under the WTO regime. Instead, it will have a more focussed and narrow role of border-protection and anti-smuggling. As compared to PCS, the newly created IRS will have better opportunities and unparalleled powers. This is particularly the case because Reformed GST is about to be approved which will mean even greater powers for IRS.