LAHORE, July 10: The question of accommodating MPAs without affecting those on merit has delayed the recruitment process in the Punjab, official sources informed Dawn on Thursday.

Punjab Chief Secretary Hafeez Akhtar Randhawa had, in a meeting on July 2, announced that the process would start after July 7, and all recruitment would be contractual and strictly on merit.

Official sources said the main hurdle in the way of the recruitment was the MPAs’ desire to have a share in jobs which Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi wanted to fill purely on merit to avoid criticism.

Right now the authorities were in a fix how to accommodate the MPAs without affecting the merit. “Most probably only those (recommended by the MPAs) will be accommodated who will fulfil all requirements of the jobs concerned to avoid ill-will among other competitors and general public,” they said.

The sources said so far the process had not yet been started, pending a decision on the issue.

They said the issue of accommodating the MPAs was agitated during the last cabinet meeting during which several ministers forcefully demanded a share in jobs because of, what they said, pressure from their voters.

The sources claimed that the ministers accused bureaucracy of “ignoring” everyone while designing policy for the recruitment.

They said the provincial government wanted to create around 100,000 vacancies in the province but was reluctant to fill them at once because of matters like the MPAs quota.

It also intended to recruit 25,000 people in police but was unable to start the process because of lack of training facilities. During his recent visit to the Sihala Police Training College, the chief minister had asked the police authorities to expand facilities there so that more recruitments could be made at the earliest, the sources said.

At present, the government intends to recruit 6,000 ASIs and constables, 15,000 people in the education department, 5,000 in the health department and 5,000 in all other departments.