ISLAMABAD, March 27: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has rejected the interior ministry’s directives of abolishing 254 additional posts, an official source told Dawn on Wednesday.

The source said the CDA, which had already deferred the downsizing plan, was reportedly directed by the interior ministry to abolish more posts and hand over some of their directorates to the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration.

The Authority, however, has rejected the interior ministry orders.

Under the plan, the Authority has reportedly abolished 487 posts. However, the interior ministry has asked the CDA to abolish a total of 741 posts.

The process of downsizing was initiated at several government departments with a view to check over-staffing and filling vacant posts through adjustment of surplus staff.

Under the plan, the CDA’s health directorate and its model school were to be handed over to the ICT.

The source said some 155 posts existed with the health directorate, while the CDA model school had 134 posts.

All these posts will automatically be abolished, if both the directorates are transferred to the ICT.

The source said the total number of CDA directorates, which was 52, had to be cut down and some merged to reduce their number to 32.

However, the CDA also rejected the proposal of handing over land and rehabilitation directorate to the ICT as the directorate had to settle various matters, including disposing of claims of those displaced people whose villages had been turned into developed areas.

The Authority decided that the directorate of the municipal authority would not be merged into sanitation. Similarly, the directorate of administration will not be merged into the directorate of personnel.

The CDA decided not to abolish the directorates of structure, master plan and Kutcha Abadi cells.

Similarly, there is no possibility of dissolving the directorate of water and sewerage and establishing a new wing.

Another source told Dawn that the process of rightsizing was initiated for short-listing the number of posts in the CDA and there was no provision in the government’s plan to create new posts. But, recently a new post of deputy financial advisor-II was created in the Authority.

The source said no CDA employee was sacked under the rightsizing plan, but, those working on the abolished posts were adjusted in vacant positions or included in the surplus pool.