PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Management Service (PMS) officers have requested the prime minister to grant provincial officers the same special allowance already announced by the federal government for the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) and Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) officers posted to 26 districts ofthe province.
Earlier this week, the federal government designated 26 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as ‘terror-affected’, making PAS and PSP officers posted there eligible for an ‘extraordinary law and order and security risk allowance’ with effect from July 1 this year.
The allowance for officers posted in 26 of the province’s 35 districts will be equivalent to 250 per cent of their running basic pay and paid retrospectively.On Tuesday, PMS Officers Association KP president Noman Wazir wrote to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, requesting him to include PMS officers of KP alongside PAS and PSP officers and declare the allowance admissible to PMS officers posted in the notified districts from July 1 on the same terms and conditions.
Mr Wazir noted that Articles 25 and 27 of the Constitution guaranteed equality before the law and prohibited discrimination in public service on the basis of cadre.
He, however, said that the Establishment Division recently granted the KP Extraordinary Law, Order and Security Risk Allowance to PAS and PSP officers only, posted in the 26 ‘terrorstruck and seriously disturbed’ districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with effect from July 1.
The association leader said that PMS Officers Association KP, while appreciating the said incentive granted to officers serving in the terror-struck and disturbed districts, took strong exception to the exclusion of PMS officers there from and terms the same as discriminatory, arbitrary and violative of the fundamental rights.
He said that PMS officers were postedto the very same districts and discharged the same law and order, magisterial and administrative duties.
‘Their exclusion amounts to hostile discrimination and violates the settled principle of equal pay for equal risk and equal work,’ he said.
Mr Wazir said that the districts where officers of other cadres were often reluctanttoserve on accountofsecurityconditions were, in fact, being administered on the frontline by PMS officers.
‘From Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Kurram, Bajaur and Waziristan to Malakand, PMS officers are the first responders during terrorism incidents, IDP crisis, and law and order emergencies. The risk to life, family, and property is identical for every officer serving in these areas. PMS officers constitute nearly 90 per cent of the district administration, and denying them this allowance is a moral injustice that severely undermines the morale of the provincial service and will affect overall public service delivery throughout the province,’ he noted.
The association leader also pointed out that the gravity of this risk, neither theoretical nor exaggerated, was borne out by the supreme sacrifices rendered by PMSofficers in the line of duty.
He said that two PMS officers have embraced martyrdom while performing their duties, one in Bajaur and one in North Waziristan.
Mr Wazir said that in a separate incident in Kurram, a serving deputy commissioner (PMS) and an assistant commissioner (PMS) were critically injured while performing their duties in high-risk areas.
He said that those sacrifices established, beyond any doubt, that PMS officers bear the same, and in many cases greater, exposure to danger as any other cadre posted in these districts.
‘It is a matter of record that whenever risk allowances were sanctioned for disturbed areas in the past, they’re extended to all civil services posted therein and were never made cadre-specific,’ he said.
The association leader said the exclusion created an unjustified two-tier system for officers facing one and the same risk.
He said the intervention of the prime minister in redressing that genuine grievance would go a long way in restoring the confidence and morale of the provincial service.