Right-sizing: Monitoring body for Highway Patrol to go

Notification gives legal cover to services of officials on expired contracts.

LAHORE:

The provincial government has decided to close the Directorate of Monitoring established in the Home Department in 2005 to monitor the performance of Punjab Highway Patrol set up to maintain law and order at highways and inter-city roads in the province.

A notification was issued in this regard by Home Department on June 4, a senior official told The Express Tribune, speaking on condition on anonymity.

He said the notification provided legal cover till June 30 to the salaries and perks and privileges of the officials who had been serving in the directorate despite expiry of their contracts.

Of the 93 officials working in the directorate, the contracts of 17 expired in 2009, of 56 in 2010 and of 20 in May 2011, he added.

The official said that the director general of the directorate, Air Commodore (retd) Khalid Bashir Cheema’s contract had expired in August 2010.

He said Cheema was appointed on a two-year contract in August 2005. “He was given an extension at the end of his two-year term,” he said.

Cheema said the notification issued by the Home Department legalised the service of the officials after the expiry of their contracts. He said the directorate was being closed under the government’s rationalisation and right-sizing policy.

A committee has been formed by the Home Department to look after the distribution of equipment, furniture and vehicles in the directorate’s use.

The official said officials of the Home Department as well as the Police Department were already campaigning to gain possession of these items.

A Programme Management Unit was established in 2005 to monitor the performance of the PHP.

Initially, 187 officials were appointed to the PMU of which 14 were assistant directors in BPS-17, two deputy directors in BPS-18, 10 additional directors in BPS-19 and a director general in BPS-20. The PMU was later renamed the directorate of monitoring.

The government had set up 450 patrolling posts at a cost of Rs6 billion in January 2003. The number of these posts had later increased to 522. At present, only 302 of these are functional across various highways and inter-city roads in the province.

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