LAHORE, Jan 14: Selection for posts of the local government officials in grade 16 and 17 should be made through the Punjab Public Service Commission, suggests the annual report of the PPSC.

Presented in the Punjab Assembly by Punjab Food Minister Chaudhry Iqbal, in his capacity as minister in-charge of the S&GAD department, it said the government was strictly adhering to the principle of merit in recruitment.

Responding to suggestions of members, the minister said candidates could opt for Urdu language while taking PPSC tests. However, he observed, it would be improper to discourage the use of English at this level because of the status it had achieved.

Earlier, the members urged the government to implement the other observations made by the report to improve the standard of education. Punjab Education Minister Imran Masood told the house that 38,000 posts of teachers were lying vacant in the government institutions across the province and they would be filled on merit.

He said area-specific recruitments of teachers and lecturers had proved a good exercise, which had removed the problems related to postings and transfers. He said the incumbent government had neither granted any quota to MPAs nor succumbed to any pressure in recruitment.

He said it was for the first time in the history of the province that the candidates having graduation degrees had been employed as teachers in schools. Previously only matriculate and intermediate teachers were working in these institutions, he added.

While responding to a supplementary question on the police performance, law minister Basharat Raja said the government had increased salaries of policemen and equipped them with sophisticated weapons and vehicles due to which they had shown improvement in their performance. -APP