PCS vs DMG: Gilani constitutes committee to address grievances

Provincial officers say DMG ‘sidelines’ them, especially in the Punjab.

LAHORE:

The prime minister has constituted a committee to look into the grievances that provincial civil service (PCS) officers have against their District Management Group (DMG) colleagues.

The decision came after a delegation of PCS officers called on the prime minister yesterday to bring to his attention the “unjust” way DMG officers treat them.

The committee will be headed by Senator Babar Awan and will include secretaries of the Establishment and Cabinet Divisions and the Attorney General of Pakistan.

The prime minister said that the committee will be asked to submit its report at the earliest so the complaints of provincial officers can be resolved.

The provincial officers group that met the PM was led by Rai Manzoor Nasir, the president of PCS Punjab chapter, and included officers from all the provinces.

Nasir, while talking to The Express Tribune said that the delegation had told PM Yousaf Raza Gilani about how DMG officers “had sidelined PCS officers”, especially in the Punjab. The prime minister was told that only 3 of the administrative secretaries, out of 43, are from provincial services; there is only one commissioner from PCS, out of nine, in the province; and about two-thirds of DCOs posted in the Punjab are from DMG.

The delegation also objected to provincial officers not being allowed to become members of officers’ mess.

Nasir also told Gilani about the incident in March 2011 when DMG illegally arrested 73 senior officers of provincial cadre from Civil Secretariat during a peaceful protest.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2011.