IN his article ‘A purposeless civil service’ (Feb 26), Syed Saadat has enumerated two qualities of the Civil Service of Pakistan, namely, the superiority complex of seniors and sycophancy of juniors. He termed it obsolete service of Pakistan.

He has further cited the example of the civil service of Singapore, in which reforms were introduced by the government with two objectives.

One, that (1) civil servants must show an attitude of excellence in meeting the needs of the public with high standards of quality, courtesy and responsiveness.

Two, that it should not be closed to hiring talented individuals from outside the service structure. Thus the line between the bureaucrat and technocrat was obliterated.

Reforming the structure of our civil services is already overdue. A number of committees and commissions were constituted by the government in the past but their reports never saw the light because top men wanted to protect their group interests.

In line with the Singapore experience, I propose restructuring of civil services on the following lines:

Officers belonging to federal services should be recruited by the FPSC as is being done at present.

Recruitment to all civil services belonging to provinces, including the DMG and police service (as law and order are provincial subjects), should be done by provincial governments through the Provincial Public Service Commissions.

All federal and provincial officers should serve in their respective cadres up to the level of grade 20 which should be the highest level in the respective cadres.

For example, federal service officers will rise to the level of joint secretary, commissioner of customs, commissioner of income tax, etc., while in the provinces they will rise to the level of commissioner of a civil division, chief engineer of the department, director of health services, director of education, while the present DIG of police may be designated as divisional commissioner of the police.

All grade 20 officers of the federal and provincial services should be eligible for opting for a newly-created unified all-Pakistan Service, Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS), comprising grade 21 and grade 22 officers.

All grade 20 officers opting for the unified service should go through written tests and interviews held by the FPSC.

On selection to the PAS in grade 21 and after attending the requisite training at the Administrative Staff College, officers should be posted as additional secretaries in the federal government, secretaries in the provincial governments, provincial police commissioners, and chairmen of autonomous bodies or equivalent posts.

These suggestions would not find favour with the DMG class as they have enjoyed unbridled authority over the affairs of the state since independence.

Having been recruited into the district management cadre, the role of DMG officers should have been restricted to the management of a district or a division but, on the other hand, they appropriated to themselves a bigger role of managing the state. This latter responsibility is now proposed to be assigned to a galaxy of deserving officers selected from all federal and provincial services

FAQIR AHMAD PARACHA Peshawar