REFORMS AT DISTRICT LEVEL

Civil Service is primarily a body of professional administrators as opposed to politicians. They are permanent and skilled, and are paid for their services. The term does not include defence personnel, politicians, judiciary or those who work in an honorary capacity.

The history of civil service can be traced back to ancient China, Egypt and, in our context, the British Rule. In Indo-Pak Subcontinent the Indian Civil Service (ICS) was a ‘Steel Frame’ meant to ensure dominance and perpetuation of colonial rule.

There is a marked difference between the terms ‘civil service’ and ‘bureaucracy’ though both are used interchangeably. Some prominent distinctions are:

After partition, the system of Indian Civil Service was adopted in Pakistan and the civil servants were assigned the task of running affairs of the nascent state. But, it soon came to the fore that the system designed by the colonial rulers is neither suitable nor does it fulfil the requirements of efficient administration. So, a dire need for reforms was strongly felt.

Since 1947, many committees and commissions had been formed to reform the civil service so as to improve public service delivery. Although these efforts have culminated in present-day structure of the civil service, yet it still needs improvement to meet the ever-growing challenges in state of affairs, at federal, provincial and district level.

Nevertheless reforming civil service cannot produce desired results and no changes can serve the purpose until we have true democracy functioning. Military interventions and political wrangling of the past still haunt us. But, despite restoration of democracy local bodies polls are still not in sight in three provinces.

As regards the matter of local level governance and responding to the needs of the people, unfortunately, we haven’t come out of that ‘Steel Frame’ of colonial civil service system save big cities, to some extent. Reforms are inevitable in Pakistan. It’s a continuous process and it should come from inside by the growth of the system not by the designs of any few. The step-by-step reforms in the long run will strengthen the system and will also create acceptability and legitimacy among the stakeholders.

People gauge the performance of government with the resolution of their problems at local level. Their top priority is access to administrators and immediate action on their complaints. Had there been a local government system functional, the famine-like situation in ‘Thar’ could have been averted.

The reforms at the highest level are indeed an urgent need but they are equally important at district level being the implementation stage of all the decisions taken at strategic level. Therefore, establishing District Public Service Commission on the pattern of Federal and Provincial Public Service Commissions in every district is direly needed. To hold the district administration accountable, the scheme of District Ombudsman should also be introduced under the supervision of respective Provincial Ombudsman.

The reforms envisaged in the NCGR must be implemented to bring harmony in all the tiers of government. This will also help improve administrative culture and enhancing public confidence in the administration.