KARACHI, April 1: A group of doctors belonging to the health department of the Sindh government has forwarded a letter to the chief minister highlighting the problems faced by them due to non-implementation of the four-tier formula.

There are three cadres of doctors working in the health department— the general cadre, the specialist cadre and the teaching cadre.

The four tier formula was adopted for college teachers in the Sindh education department in 1991, and was first implemented in the Punjab health department in 1994-94.

According to the formula the ratio for grade 20, grade-19 grade-18 and grade 17 is 1:15:34: 50 respectively. The sanctioned strength of the general cadre in the health department is about 9800, grade -17 posts are 5400, in grade-18 there are 3672 posts, in grade-19 there are 1620 posts and for grade -20 there are 108 posts.

At present 70 posts of grade 20 are either lying vacant or are occupied by junior doctors. In 1979 35 doctors got promotions from grade-19 to grade-20, and since then no progress has been made in this regard. Instead the health secretary moved a summary to the chief secretary in December 2001 to change the nomenclature of posts under the devolution plan; the request was made for redesignation of posts after abolition of some and downgrading them from BPS-20 to BPS-19. However, it could not materialise due to the objection raised by the then secretary local government. The general cadre are complaining of delay in their promotions, the teaching cadre are getting promotions regularly and there is no promotion policy for the specialist cadre.—PPI