Quoting quotas: Fighting for a fair share

Candidates from 13 districts stage protest for separate quota in CSS exams.

MULTAN:

A massive rally of students competing in the federal and provincial exams was taken out on Monday. Nearly 800 people took out a rally demanding a quota for southern Punjab in the federal and provincial competitive examinations.

Participants of the rally included candidates who have appeared in written exams and given interviews for federal and provincial competitive exams for vacant seats in government jobs. The protesters raised slogans against the government to provide them with a separate quota in the competitive examinations. “There are quota’s for Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit. Southern Punjab needs to have a separate quota because most of the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSS) positions are secured by northern Punjab,” said Multan student Raza Ali.

Hundreds of students said that the federation had been ignoring their complaints. “We have been saying this for ages. The quota allocation is uneven and it needs to be distributed fairly for candidates from smaller cities and remote areas,” said Afzar Khan. The protesters also demanded that the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani organize the examination centres for CSS exams in different centres in southern Punjab.

“There is only one centre in Lahore for the entire southern part of the province,” Khan said, adding “we need to be able to give the exams without worrying about how we will pay to take them in Lahore,” he said.  Poor students have complained that they are unable to afford the preparation and travelling expenses involved in travelling to Lahore for a single written test or interview for a government post.

“The same case applies for exams that are conducted at the federal level when candidates have to travel to Islamabad,” protester Maheen Safdar said.

Former Punjab MPA Javed Siddiqui attended the protest and assured the candidates of his support. Siddiqui assured candidates that their demands would be met as soon as possible and they should submit an application to the prime minister listing all their demands in detail. “The federal government is asleep. It is unaware that only 35 DMG officers have been selected during the years of civil service in Pakistan from southern Punjab,” Khan said.

The protesters said that they fully supported the quotas for Baluchistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit. “We are only asking that we also receive a quota so that students from southern Punjab can be represented properly,” said Safdar.

“I will request that the prime minister to take these demands seriously. We need to encourage people who wish to take the CSS exams and serve the country rather than alienate them,” Siddiqi said.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 15th, 2011.