THE people of Gilgit-Baltistan have been living under a constitutional anomaly since Nov 1 1947, when the local people rebelled and ousted the ruling Dogras.

In the absence of direct representation in the national legislature, various political governments have ruled the area through ad hoc presidential and executive orders such as Provisional Constitutional Order, Legal Framework Order and Gilgit-Baltistan Self-Empowerment and Governance Order.

These Orders have provided for the Constitution of a directly elected ‘provincial assembly’ whose members and ministers are subservient to the administrative secretaries, not to mention the viceroy-like chief secretary posted in the region from the federation.

Moreover, the officers belonging to Gilgit-Baltistan service (locally named as district management services and office management services), who are selected by the Federal Public Service Commission, are discriminated against in the vacancy-sharing formula included in the fifth schedule of Governance Order promulgated by a president of Pakistan in 2009.

While officers belonging to various APUG service groups can be posted to Gilgit-Baltistan, treating the region as a province when it is not, no officer from the region can be posted to down country. Moreover, the government structure in the region is not as developed as in the provinces or the region of Azad Kashmir, where only inspector-general of police and chief secretary are brought in from the federation.

Resultantly, a few powerful positions are occupied by officers from the south and local officers are posted on unimportant positions.

A clear bias against the local officers selected through the FPSC, as enshrined in the Gilgit-Baltistan Rules of Business 2009, is that the key posts of home secretary, finance secretary and planning secretary are reserved for the officers to be posted by the federation.

These anomalies and discriminatory policies are resented by local officers.

Ali Usman

Gilgit-Baltistan

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2014