PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Mahmood Khan said here on Sunday that all the required resources would be provided for strengthening and capacity building of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission (PSC).

He said that PSC being the only constitutional and reliable body for induction of quality human resource in the provincial civil services needed to be strengthened on modern lines to bring more transparency and efficiency.

He was chairing a meeting of the cabinet committee, constituted to strengthen PSC by introducing structural reforms in it, held here the other day.

Besides members of the cabinet committee Minister for Law Sultan Khan and Minster for Local Government Akbar Ayub, the meeting was also attended by Additional Chief Secretary Shakeel Qadir, Finance Secretary Aatif Rehman, Establishment Secretary Mutahir Zeb, PSC Chairman Faridullah Khan and other concerned authorities.

Mahmood Khan says all resources will be provided to the body

The meeting was given detailed briefing on the overall performance, organisational structure, recruitment process and other matters of the commission. It was decided in the meeting to evolve a mechanism to minimise the lengthy time period involved in the recruitment process to the minimum possible extent, enhance the working capacity of the commission.

The cabinet committee was directed to submit concrete and workable recommendations to this effect within one month. In order to make the recommendations of the committee more relevant and effective, it was decided to include special assistant to cm on higher education and finance and establishment secretaries as members in the committee.

It was pointed out on the occasion that one reason for delay in recruitment process of PSC was late submission of requisitions by administrative departments as well.

The chief minister directed the administrative heads of all the departments to ensure timely submission of requisitions to the commission for hiring in their respective departments.

He ordered the departments to ensure that requisitions sent to the commission were flawless in all respects so that the same could not be returned by the commission on the ground of observations and thus unnecessary delay in hiring process could be avoided.

Stressing the need for effective and maximum use of information technology in the hiring process of PSC, the chief minister directed the relevant authorities to hire the services and expertise of KP Information Technology Board.

He also directed the finance department to ensure timely release of PSC’s budget and to provide all the required financial resources to make it financially sound.

Mr Khan expressed the resolve that KP Public Service Commission and Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency would be so strengthened that there would be no need of private recruitment agencies for the provincial government.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2020