August 24, 2007	Friday	Sha’aban 10, 1428

LAHORE, Aug 23: The Punjab government is contemplating to cluster the existing administrative departments and appointing principal secretaries in BS-21 for oversight and giving policy guidelines for their smooth functioning.

A senior officer of the provincial government told Dawn on Thursday that the top hierarchy of civil bureaucracy had proposed clubbing of the departments with inter-connecting affairs.

After going through the process, some 12 to 15 principal secretaries of BS-21 would be appointed to head the departments. They would coordinate among the administrative secretaries of the departments under them and would not indulge in routine matters, but give their input at policy level so that their resources could be pooled for better utilisation, the officer said.

He said the departments like agriculture, food, livestock, irrigation and forest or health and population welfare, education, special education and literacy departments could be clustered together for better management and coordination among them.

Such a move was not unusual, he said, keeping in view the growth of the government infrastructure and size. The proposal had been sent to the chief minister for approval, he added.

Another officer, however, claimed that the government wanted to ‘accommodate’ some of its favourite officers in the grade and was therefore coming up with this strategy. He said the government had done the same by appointing a number of additional inspector generals in the province to retain its blue-eyed men.

“As the DIGs lost their authority after that move, the administrative secretaries will no more be the real heads of their departments after the fresh decision,” he said, pointing out that the proposal had created stir among them (administrative secretaries).

Dismissing the apprehension, a provincial secretary said after attaining the grade 21 an officer was in a position to ‘manage’ his stay in the province of his or her choice. He said it was not Punjab alone that was mulling such proposals, but the NWFP too was brooding over a plan to appoint three regional coordination officers in the province for coordination among the DCOs and police chiefs.

Chief Secretary Salman Siddique confirmed that the proposal was being discussed. Singapore had experienced clustering of departments which proved successful, he said, adding that the provincial government was studying the proposal and would take a decision in this regard soon.