Federal bureaucracy: Minorities served the worst deal

The majority of Christians are employed as sanitation workers.


Waqas Naeem February 03, 2013
The majority of Christians are employed as sanitation workers.

ISLAMABAD:


If the share of a religious minority in employment in the federal government can be taken as a measure of its social status, Pakistan’s non-Muslims are not doing too well.


Out of the 449,964 federal government employees, only 2.6 per cent or 11,521 are non-Muslims, according to the Annual Statistical Bulletin of Federal Government Employees 2010-11.

That is even less than the percentage of non-Muslims in the population. According to the 1998 census, the last time a census was held in the country, no-Muslims made up 3.7 per cent of the country’s population.

Christians, also Pakistan’s largest non-Muslim community, constituted 87.2 per cent of the non-Muslim federal government employees in 2010-11. Around 70 per cent of the 11,521 non-Muslim federal government employees belong to the lowest cadre: grades 1 and 2. The majority of them are Christians with Punjab and Islamabad domiciles, who work in the sanitation departments of federal ministries and divisions.

There were no non-Muslims in grade 22 and only three grade 21 officers, all of whom were from Sindh, in 2010-11.

The breakup of the non-Muslims in the federal government for 2010-11 is 10,053 Christians, 219 Ahmedis, 981 caste Hindus, 239 non-caste Hindus, two Parsis, one Buddhist and 26 employees belonged to other faiths.

Out of the 10,053 Christians, only 151 served in grades 17 to 22 during 2010-11, followed by 79 caste Hindus. At 87 per cent, a vast majority of the Hindus employed in the federal government are from Sindh.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3rd, 2013.

COMMENTS (19)

Soul of Manto | 11 years ago | Reply

@Salman

Jobs are available for educated and trained ones, not on the basis of knowledge of prayer.

Shami | 11 years ago | Reply

@Vikas

if you mean that muslims are dumber/talentless, that may be your bias opinion. But the other way to look at it is systematic discrimination of Muslims in different fields. Muslims in India are less facilitated and kept under-performed. i am an Indian BTW

VIEW MORE COMMENTS
Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ