PESHAWAR, Jan 1: Administrative secretaries of all the departments of the NWFP government have been directed to submit official summaries and briefs for the perusal of the Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani in Urdu, according to official sources.
Instructions to this effect have formally been issued by the Establishment Department (Regulation Wing), NWFP, through a notification issued on Dec 16, 2002.
Signed by a relevant section officer of the department, the notification said: “I am directed to convey the desire of the NWFP chief minister that all briefs on important cases submitted to the chief minister should be prepared preferably in Urdu”.
The instructions sent to the administrative secretaries of all the departments of the NWFP government further contained that “you (administrative secretaries) are requested to kindly comply with the above mentioned directives of the chief minister, NWFP”.
Though formal instructions to the authorities concerned have formally been issued through a notification recently, provincial bureaucracy had started submitting official summaries and briefs to the chief minister in Urdu before he was sworn in.
The establishment department’s instructions coincided with the Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed’s assertion during his speech at Peshawar on the same day the instructions were issued in which he had asked the provincial government to adopt Urdu as medium of instruction in the educational institutions and all the offices.
According to official sources, the chief minister had issued instruction to the establishment department before the JI chief made the point on Dec 16.
Apart from the chief minister, the sources said Urdu summaries and briefs had also been asked for the members of the provincial cabinet.
“Urdu version would also be prepared of all the official summaries that would be placed before the provincial cabinet,” the sources added.
The decision has been necessitated to help the provincial ministers understand the official business in true perspective.
Besides, the decision has been forced by the fact that majority of the provincial ministers belonging to Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s component parties can hardly communicate and understand languages other than Pashtu and Urdu.
This situation has put the official circles in a difficult position.
“The move has been burdensome for the officials as they are required to produce exact translation of the official matters meant for the perusal of the chief minister and members of the provincial cabinet,” said a senior government functionary.
An other official concerned said though the chief minister secretariat was still being provided summaries only in English, provincial ministers, except a few, were being forwarded briefs and summaries in Urdu.
“We have really been put in a very difficult position,” said an official, who said it took them too much time to find a suitable Urdu term to translate technical terms from English.