ISLAMABAD: Every year the federal government deducts from the salary of each of its Grade 17 officers Rs300 to provide them a book to inculcate the habit of book reading in them. But to what avail?

“Mostly the books end up not in the hands of the officers but in the stores of their departments and libraries in the case of government educational institutions,” disclosed a professor of Islamabad Model College for Boys in Sector H-8 to Dawn, requesting anonymity.

It is so not because the scheme is a legacy of the military dictator Gen Ziau Haq but because the selection of titles of the book published by the Services Book Club does not suit individual taste or need of the officers.

Gen Zia extended the army’s practice of providing a book to its officers every year to the civilian bureaucracy in 1983 by transforming the Army Book Club, controlled by the Army Education Directorate in the GHQ, into Services Book Club. Initially the titles of the books supplied suited his mission of Islamising the Pakistani society.

“It is not that the civilian officers are averse to reading books, but they should be of interest to them,” said the college professor. “Neither Rs300 is a big sum for them to pay, though the collection from the 19,000 Grade 17 officers would be quite a sum.”

In the Zia era, the Services Book Club chose titles such as Tafheemul Quran and other religious texts for publication and distribution. After the poodle-lover Gen Pervez Musharraf took the reins of the Islamic republic, the titles changed to his brand of liberalism, weighed in western thoughts, history and philosophies.

That trend has persisted since with the titles chosen most recently being ‘Why Nations Fail’ (2013), ‘Pakistan Beyond Crisis State’ (2012) and ‘Obama’s War’ (2011) and ‘The Idea of Justice’ (2010).

“It should be a matter of concern to the government that the titles published, especially during the recent years, have been of little or no interest to the majority of the officers. Some officers collect the books only because they have paid for it. That is why the stock of uncollected books keeps mounting,” said the professor.

But the Services Book Club only prints the books. An individual – the Secretary Establishment Division - chooses the title, asses the librarian of a college.

“And those who pay for the project, the officers, have to accept his choice whether the title interests them or not. Sometimes, selection of books looks confusing,” he said.

A professor of Persian language, requesting anonymity, observed that teachers of Persian, Islamiat, Arabic and Urdu couldn’t read or understand English language books. Officers of different ministries may be in a similar situation, according to the librarian.

“Every person has his own taste for literature of study. If the intention is to benefit the officers intellectually, the government should seek input from others too and publish titles, catering to different tastes, in both English and Urdu languages,” he said.