PESHAWAR: The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) has changed criteria for appointment on at least three posts without notifying changes in its rules,according to sources.

Documents available with this scribe show that PDMA has advertised 40 vacancies on September 26.

However, the students of Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management (CDPM) of University of Peshawar protested against it, saying that their degree was not included in the list of the required qualifications for the posts.

The CDPM management on September 29 wrote a letter to PDMA, noting that its degree wasnot included in the eligibility criteria for different posts advertised by various government departments working on disaster risk reduction.

It asked PDMA to include MSc and BS four-year disaster management degrees in the eligibility criteria for its various vacant positions.

On October 7, PDMA issued a corrigendum about including four-year BS degree in disaster management in the list of the required qualifications for BS-17 posts of assistant director infrastructure (social), assistant director (production), assistant director monitoring and evaluation (relief).

Sources said the authority didn`t notify the changes made to the eligibility criteria for the posts mentioned in the schedule-II of the PDMA Employees Service Regulations, 2013. They said that before issuing the corrigendum, PDMA needed to notify changes to its rules, which it failed to do.

On the other hand, 29 employees of Provincial Relief, Rehabilitation and Settlement Authority (PaRRSA) have moved Supreme Court against new recruitments on the said vacancies.PaRRSA, which was set up in June 2009 to spearhead relief and rehabilitation activities in the affected areas of the province, was later merged into PDMA for which finance department issued a SNE of 82 posts with effect from January 1, 2012.

The employees are of the view thattheyhave spentaboutsixyears in the department and most of them are now overage. They say that the department is employing new personnel after doing away with them.

An employee of PaRRSA told this scribe that the summaries prepared for the merger also said that they would be absorbed in PDMA, however, they were being shown the door unceremoniously.

`PDMA even did not regularise a single one of the PaRRSA employees and now is hiring new people, one of the employees said while requesting anonymity.

He said that Supreme Court granted them a status quo after the vacancies were advertised.

A PDMA official, requesting anonymity, said that although secretary approved changes to the regulations, however, the changes were yet to be approved by the compe-tent authority. `The changes need to be approved by a committee comprising officials from establishment, finance and relief, rehabilitation and settlement departments, he said.

About the future of PaRRSA workers, he said that they were project`s employees and would be relieved as the project was completed. He said that they had already lost their case in Peshawar High Court.

Tariq Rashid, the secretary of relief, rehabilitation and settlement department, to get the department`s opinion, when contacted for comments, referred this scribe to director relief of PDMA. However, the director said that he was transferred recently and the newly appointed director didn`t take charge yet.

PDMA Director General Amer Afaq, when reached by telephone, refused to discuss the issue and referred the matter to the director HR, who was on leave to attend a training course.

Rehmat Ali, the assistant director admin, also refused to discuss the issue, saying he was busy at the moment.