DERA GHAZI KHAN: After power and education departments, the Punjab Population Welfare Department will also be monitored by retired army junior commission officers.

The Punjab government has notified district coordination officers (DCOs) to hire retired subedar, naib subedar and hawaldars to monitor and evaluate the working of the population welfare department, sources told Dawn.

The retired officials will be hired on contract and their primary job will be to monitor the working of the department in birth control. The recruitment committee consists of the DCO as head while the district monitoring officer and the district population officer will be members. Contract will be renewed on the basis of up age limit.

District Population Welfare Officer Huma Mehdi Leghari told Dawn the department had been intimated regarding recruitment of monitoring and evaluation assistants and the body would soon initiate the process of recruitment.