KARACHI, Nov 19: The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB), ignoring the Sindh chief secretary’s orders against fresh recruitment, has appointed around 700 employees in different cadres (from BPS-11 to BPS-17), it is reliably learnt.

According to the sources, more than 500 appointment letters were issued shortly after the imposition of emergency on Nov 3 while the process of appointing nearly 200 more persons is almost in its final stage.

“Most of the 500 people appointed after the imposition of emergency have already submitted their joining reports with the departments concerned while the other 200 will be joining the water utility in a couple days,” the sources told Dawn on Monday.Giving a break up, the sources said 26 appointments were made in grade 17, 15 in grade 16; 53 in grade 14, seven in grade 12 and 68 in grade 11. The rest were made in grade 1 to 9, 280 of them in grade 3 (health workers).

The officials who have been placed in grade 17 have been designated as accounts officer, assistant executive engineer (both electrical and mechanical), assistant law officer, medical officer, security officer, computer system analyst and deputy director. Four chemists, one assistant accounts officer, one assistant director and a photographer have been appointed in grade 16.

The sources told Dawn that although the applications against 672 vacant posts had been invited through an advertisement in newspapers, the appointments had been made simply after an interview, adding that no written tests or other formalities were done.

While making fresh appointments of assistant executive engineers, the KWSB did not consider those 200 candidates who were declared successful in a test conducted by the KWSB last year through the NED University.