Civil servants: Officers concerned at mooted exam waiver

S&GAD proposes exam exemption for BS-17 section officers.

LAHORE:

Civil servants have expressed concern over a proposal to relax the requirement that section officers in BS-17 pass a set of exams for promotion as deputy secretaries in BS-18 in the Services and General Administration Department (S&GAD), saying the move would be unfair to other officers.

The S&GAD has submitted a summary to the chief minister for a waiver of the exams, known as the Prescribed Departmental Examination (PDE). The rules require officers to pass tests in five subjects, officials in the department told The Express Tribune.

The exams are mandatory in all departments where technical manpower is employed, like the Irrigation and Power and Communication and Works Departments.

The officials said that officers concerned about the proposal had written to the chief minister asking him not to waive the exams, because it would benefit “inefficient and lazy officers ... which would hurt public [service] delivery and business”. The proposal would benefit about 100 officers, they said.

The officers were concerned that granting the exemption “to a select group of officers would be unfair to those officers who have passed the said examination and those who were deferred from promotion on that basis,” said the officials. It would also be unfair to officers recruited on a direct quota and ex-Provincial Civil Services officers inducted in the PMS.

“The dispensation desired by promoted section officers is discriminatory [and] tantamount to undermining the promotion prospects of a large number of PMS officers,” they said.

They said that according to Section 5 of the Punjab Civil Servants Act 1974, a civil servant who has been appointed to a post where confirmation requires passing a departmental examination, is to be discharged or reverted if she fails the exams.

Passing the PDE is also mandatory for confirmation under Rule 4 of the Punjab Management Service (PMS) Rules 2004, they said. According to the Punjab Employees Efficiency and Discipline Act, 2006, an officer who fails to pass the PDE in the allowed number of attempts is deemed to be inefficient.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2011.