LAHORE: The Federal Seed Certification & Registration Department (FSC&RD) is allegedly conducting a recruitment process for its 50 vacancies without lawful authorisation from the Ministry of National Food Security & Research (MNFS&R), it has been learnt.

The recruitment process is reportedly going on notwithstanding several written complaints to the higher-ups and even to the Prime Minister Complaint Cell, drawing attention of the authorities to the violation of the procedure, rules and regulations and denial of prescribed quota for small provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan, women and the physically-challenged persons.

Sources say the FSC&RD did not advertise the posts in regional newspapers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) while it avoided the mainstream newspapers and averted conducting written tests in KP, Balochistan, GB and other far-flung areas, allegedly to keep the process confined to the blue-eyed candidates.

It’s a strange coincidence that is raising suspicions about the recruitment that the maximum number of candidates for various vacancies applied from district Kasur, the hometown of a deputy director of the FSC&RD.

Many candidates, who approached Dawn, complained that the venue for examination centre in Islamabad was changed on the night before the written test and many of them missed it for failing to locate and reach the new venue in time.

Likewise, the recruitment committee was not reconstituted as one of its members, Seed Registration Director Dr Nassem Begum, had gone on long leave.

It may be interesting to note that a similar recruitment process had been initiated in the Plant Breeders Rights Registry, another agency under the MNFS&R established to meet seed companies’ demand for registering new breeds of seeds having more yield and high resistance to insects and diseases for the country’s cash crops like wheat, cotton, rice, etc.

The ministry stepped in and stopped the recruitment process in the Registry on reports of its lacking lawful authorisation but no notice was taken on the similar anomalies in recruitments for the seed certification body.

In a brief response to the request for comments on the reports, MNFS&R Secretary Umar Hamid said there appeared not much truth to the allegations.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2020