LAHORE, Sept 5: The civil service restructuring plan of the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) eliminates the district management group from the list of the federal service, giving its present career posts to the officers of the proposed National Executive Service (NES).
The NES is among the five independent services which the NRB has proposed. It will have officers from the federal and provincial services and executives from the private sector.
Others proposed cadres are the independent federal, provincial, district and tehsil municipal services.
At present, the DMG officers are part of the federal service and hold a sway over the key positions in the federal and provincial governments.
The government has already stopped induction in the group which had earlier suffered a major set back after the elimination of its key field posts of divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners at the time of the implementation of the devolution plan on August 14 last year.
Police group is also a part of the federal service which the NRB plans to make a provincial cadre under its service reconstruction plan.
According to the NRB plan, selection for the NES will be made through an examination to be conducted by the FPSC (Federal Public Service Commission). It will be open to officers of the federal and provincial services in grades 18 and 19, and executives of private sector having comparable experience.
Officers with 10-13 years service will be eligible to apply.
The following posts will be included in the NES: All posts of secretaries, additional, joint and deputy secretaries in the federal secretariat and chief secretaries and secretaries in the provincial government, heads of important departments of federal and provincial governments, autonomous bodies, and DCOs.
The NES members will be appointed to the service posts in order of seniority and in accordance with their areas of speciality, special knowledge and experience.
They will undergo an intensive one-year education-cum-training programme. The course will include relevant portions of MBA and MPA programmes, public policy and finance, macro, micro and development economics, governance and politics.
The NRB believes that the concept provides equal opportunity to all public servants to join the elite ranks and offers bright career prospects to the best among them and the service can become a powerful instrument to restore and foster morale of the public services.
It says the prospects of eventually entering the service will act as a deterrent to any parochial tendencies among officers. Being a product of the reforms, the NES can be expected to provide the needed sustenance and impetus to the government’s reform agenda.
Federal Service: Induction into it will be made on the basis of provincial and regional quota, having posts of the federal government from BS-1 to 22 except for the ones to be reserved for the NES.
The service will have an all Pakistan character and except for those belonging to the audit group, its members will not hold posts outside the federal government as a routine.
The occupational groups will include commerce and trade, customs and excise, income tax, military lands and cantonments, foreign service, human resource management, information, postal, accounts, audit and economists and planners.
The restructured federal service plan proposes to make the police service group a provincial service.
Provincial Executive Service: It is aimed at providing officers for the policy design positions of BS-18 and 19 in the provincial secretariat, the EDO positions in the district governments, the TMO positions and important managerial positions in the provincial governments of BS-19 and above.