PESHAWAR, Jan 9: The NWFP government has upgraded three posts each of provincial secretaries and commissioners from grade 20 to grade 21, creating more promotion opportunities for senior officer serving in the province.

A decision to this effect was taken by NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti on a summary submitted to him a few days back, an official told Dawn here on Saturday.

The summary, backed by senior bureaucrats, was aimed at upgrading at least 50 per cent of the existing grade 20 posts to grade 21 just to increase opportunities of promotions in the province.

Examples of Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh provinces, which had already upgraded the senior level positions, have also been citied in the summary to support the bureaucracy’s stand over the issue, the official explained.

However, the official said the chief minister only upgraded three posts each of provincial secretaries and commissioners from grade 20 to grade 21 to avoid financial implications.

Till recent, the provincial bureaucracy had three posts of provincial secretaries in grade 21 and with the upgradation of three more posts total posts the provincial secretaries in this grade now comes to six.

Similarly, all the seven posts of commissioners were in grade 20, out of which three have been upgraded to grade 21, the official maintained.

The NWFP government had revived the seven revenue divisions, which were abolished in 2001 by the former President Pervez Musharraf, by posting grade 20 officers as commissioners with delegating sweeping powers to them.

As per the rules, every officer on promotion has to be posted against the position equal to his basic pay scale within six months of issuance of his or her promotion orders, otherwise the promotion orders will stand null and void.

The province, the official said, had lost a number of goods officers who were promoted to grade 21 because there was not sufficient number of senior posts available in the province and they had to leave the province for actualisation of their promotion orders.