Capacity-building measures: Scholarships for provincial officers ‘on hold’
The government has closed the doors on provincial cadre officers for scholarships in foreign universities on the pretext of a scarcity of funds. The officers are now being offered the opportunity to attend master’s degree programmes in local universities which most of them resent, The Express Tribune learnt.
The Provincial Resource Management Programme (PRMP) was introduced as a project of the provincial Planning and Development Wing nearly two years ago to impart modern skills to officers serving in Basic Pay Scale-17, 18 and 19.
The programme was basically aimed at enabling the officers to cope with issues related to enhanced provincial autonomy. The federal government provided $2 million from its Professional Development Programme (PDP) fund for the programme in 2007. The PRMP offered scholarships for studies in 10 master’s degree programmes in foreign universities.
In the first phase of the programme, 14 officers from provincial cadres were sent for two-year degree programmes in various foreign universities. As many as 18 officers were granted the scholarships in the second phase.
However, no federal funds were available for the third phase. The government then decided it would fund the programme through indigenous resources and managed to provide for another 11 officers in 2009. In 2011, the Provincial Management Services (PMS) officers began a movement for a better deal in postings, promotion and training opportunities. This held up the training programme for a while.
PRMP finally decided that instead of foreign scholarships, scholarships at local universities would be offered in 10 disciplines.
The cost of a foreign university scholarship is around Rs4 million per officer. It comes to around Rs0.12 million per officer at a local university. A DMG officer requesting anonymity said the decision was justified under the austerity project. However, PRMP programme director Abdullah Khan Sumbal said foreign scholarships programme was on hold, not abolished. He said the chief minister had given approval for re-starting the foreign scholarships from next year. Local universities had offered scholarships and the Punjab government wanted to benefit from these in line with its policy of capacity building. Sumbal said the impression that the government had closed the doors on provincial cadre officers was false.
He said the PRMP had issued a letter to provincial administrative secretaries asking them to nominate officers who were interested in the offered disciplines. He said PRMP scholarships were available for studies at GC University, Beaconhouse National University, Forman Christian University, Lahore University of Management Sciences and Lahore School of Economics.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 28th, 2011.
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Patwari Cynic Service- more commonly known as PCS in Punjab is most corrupt, dishonest and impassive which has no interest to public service which is their prime duty. The author has failed to mention that why only DMG/PCS/PMS/PSS are allowed to apply for these so-called foreign trainings and why all non-PCS, how eligible they may be, are kept out of these trainings which never brought any improvement to our governance and service delivery mechanism. I would therefore appeal to Punjab CM to immediately ban such all foreign trainings as these pleasure trips never brought any improvement in our archaic system nor do they give any benefit to the people. It’s only a tool to enjoy abroad at the expense of public money. Will Shahabz Sharif wake up to take action and save our precious money from these leeches?
This is how the Punjab Government disowns its own people. The PMS Officers serve on the same posts on which their federal government counterparts do. In fact the majority of the officers serving in Punjab hails from provincial cadre. So how can you expect a quality service delivery while levelling such a discrimination against the service providers themselves. Barring the provincial officers from getting education from foreign universities is just one instance of countless injustices which they have to bear every day and all through their career. The question here is not about the quality of education available in Pakistan or abroad. The issue is why federal officers are being generously bestowed upon such favours and the provincial cadres are being neglected to the benefit of federal bureaucracy. Apparently it appears to be a meagre issue but such an attitude of depriving the people of their rights breeds dishormony and resentment that can culminate in weakening federalism and strengthening provincialism in its negative sense. It seems that the Punjab Government and its policy making bureaucrats have not learned anything from the recent uprising of Provincial Civil Officers and Doctors in Punjab. They should realize that by depriving the provincial officers of their due right, they are not doing any good to themselves or public. Such policies shall certainly have their repercussions and they might not be able to contain the results this time.