July 18, 2002	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 7, 1423

PESHAWAR, July 17: In an attempt to bring down the escalating establishment cost eating up to 50 per cent of the total annual revenue receipts, the NWFP government is underlying measures to restrict the future governments to continue the existing policy of making appointments only on contractual basis — except for very specific cases.

The provincial finance managers appear to be of the firm belief that the ban on regular appointments (since July 1, 2001) would need to be strictly pursued to counter the rising establishment cost to avoid draining out precious resources of cash-starved NWFP.

In actual, the ban on fresh recruitment on regular basis, in NWFP, is in vogue since Nov 4, 1992, in line with section 2 of the Civil Servant Act 1973.

The NWFP government has estimated to spend over Rs17.7 billion to pay salaries to its over 282,000 employees in addition to Rs3.6 billion for pension to its retired employees during the financial year 2002-03.

The salary and pension bills of the provincial government together with payment of gratuity and the non-cash benefits, including housing, medical cover, transport and telephone, would jointly eat much more than 50 per cent of the total annual revenue receipts of the province — which stood at over Rs34 billion in the financial year 2001-02, whereas during the new financial year the provincial government is likely to net around Rs36 billion.

The number of the provincial government’s employees increased from 177,106 in the financial year 1988-89 to 282,809 in 2000-01, an increase by over 61 per cent in a period of one decade. The number of employees rose by 4.4 per cent during the financial years 1988-89 to 1993-94, 5.1 per cent during 1993-94 to 1996-97, and 2.9 per cent during the financial years 1996-97 to 2000-01.

The provincial government, in its budget documents for the new financial year, has attributed the large size of the establishment to the donor driven demand for staffing in social sectors, political patronage of public sector employments, unplanned expansion in infrastructure and lack of job opportunities in the private sector.

Well over 71 per cent of the government employees are employed in the provincial government’s social sector departments.

The government appears to be of the view that market incompatible education system has been over the years building pressure for low paid clerical jobs in the public sector. As a result well over 90 per cent of the total 282,809 employees are employed in pay scales 1 to 17.

The wage bill, contained the documents, grew from Rs3.94 billion in the financial year 1990-91 to Rs17.79 billion in 2002-03, recording an increase by 352 per cent with annual growth rate of 14.5 per cent.

The alarming annual growth rate has been attributed to the system of automatic progression of staff in BPS-1 to 16 through mover-over, automatic annual increments, selection grades in various cadres, advance increments on possessing higher qualification even if it is social studies in the 3rd division, increase in various allowances and higher growth in the establishment size.

PROPOSED MEASURES: The proposed measures envisaging to bring down the size of provincial establishment, in the years to come, ask for making all appointments in BPS 1 to 4 only on contract basis.

Appointments of doctors/consultants/specialists, lecturers and teachers have also been proposed to be made on contract basis — excluding teaching staff in the medical colleges and attached teaching hospitals.

Similarly, the appointments of chief executives of various institutions have also been proposed to be made on contract basis.