ISLAMABAD, Aug 3: National Commission on Status of Women (NCSW), a statutory body, has criticized both federal and provincial governments for their lacklustre response to the policy recommendations, the commission had made with regard to the women employment in public sector organizations.

This observation was made in an inquiry report, recently prepared by the commission with the financial assistance of the Asian Development Bank, an official source said.

He said the commission, exercising its mandate under Article 7a of the ordinance No 26 of 2000, asked the quarters concerned to make their recommendations. The ordinance empowered the body to examine and assess implementation of government policies, and make policy recommendations with an emphasis on women employment in public sector organizations, he added.

Quoting the inquiry report, he said, the women employment in the public sector had received very little attention from the government and private sector interest groups.

The report observed that as far as the government efforts were concerned, these remained limited to announcements for reservation of quota in jobs for women in public sector organizations, let alone the private sector.

Earlier, when the government came into power, it decided to announce 25 per cent quota for women in public sector jobs, under the National Plan of Action. However, later, the consensus was reached on five per cent quota.

Similarly, at the provincial levels, Sindh and Northern Areas also announced the five per cent quota, but the NWFP government reduced it to two per cent, while the governments of Punjab and Balochistan did not endorse the proposal at all.

However, later, the Punjab government, too, approved the five per cent quota.

Subsequently, a proposal made by the women development minister, Dr Attiya Inayatullah, at the eve of the National Convention on Women, on International Women’s Day-2000, sought to increase the quota to 20 per cent.

But, to this date, all announcements made by the federal and provincial governments, in response to the commission’s recommendations, remained in limbo, mainly due to the fact that no guidelines or implementation mechanism was devised, the source said while quoting the inquiry report.

He said the commission had also made a recommendation for five per cent jobs’ quota for women at the NWFP forest department, however the provincial government did not agree on grounds that the federal government as well as the provincial ones had not practically adopted the policy.