KARACHI, June 28: The fate of at least 85 people who passed the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC) examination for the posts of agricultural officers over four years back still hangs in balance, as the decision regarding their future is to be taken by the provincial chief executive in the next few days.
The sources say that agricultural department is not giving employment to these people who were selected by the SPSC despite the fact that hundreds of posts have been lying vacant in the agriculture department for a long time and due to which the departmental work is also affected.
They say that the SPSC advertises the vacancies and conducts examinations only after it gets the request from the department concerned. A probe into the issue revealed that the Sindh government advertised 111 posts of agricultural officers through the SPSC in February 1998. Nearly 1,000 candidates appeared for the examinations and 85 of them passed. The SPSC recommended that they be appointed as agricultural officers in the agriculture (extension) department in December 1998.
These people have been running from pillar to post for nearly four years now, but to no avail. They moved the Sindh High Court and the then additional advocate general, Suleman Habibullah, submitted in the court that whenever the government decided to revive and fill the posts against which the petitioners were recommended by the SPSC, the petitioners would be accommodated in accordance with law.
The director-general of the agriculture extension had reported to his superiors on Feb 26, 2003 that “it is submitted that at present over 300 posts of BPS 17 in the Agriculture Extension and Research Wings of the agriculture department are lying vacant, but it is a surprising fact that these 85 nominees of the SPSC are still wandering without jobs. Also it is a fact that not only the said 85 persons are awaiting their appointment/posting, but 85 families are facing hardships in these hard days.”
The director general had further said: “Therefore, adjustment of the said persons as per recommendations of the SPSC in the department is very much lawful and necessary to run the field work of the wings smoothly,”
The sources say that many officials serving in another section of the agriculture department have been accommodated on the vacant posts of agriculture officers. They claim that many such officials do not even have the required qualifications to occupy the post of agriculture officers, which require that a person should have a masters degree in agriculture.
The sources also gave at least two notifications through which officers from other section had been posted as agriculture officers.
Dawn tried to get the department’s version on the issue on Saturday, but the agriculture secretary Aftab A. Memon, and his deputies Mohammad Waseem and Shahid Gulzar, remained occupied with a ‘meeting’ and did not meet the reporter. However, a source says the department has sent a summary with a “positive note” to the chief minister, and hopefully a ‘positive decision’ will be taken soon.
