CSS is the name given to a group of highly
prestigious and powerful Pakistani Federal Government Departments. Recruitment
to the officer’s cadre (Basic Pay Scale 17) of these services is extremely
competitive and it usually takes a year to complete the written examination and
the subsequent psychological tests as well as interviews. Federal Public
Service Commission of Pakistan or FPSC (http://www.fpsc.gov.pk/) is entrusted
with this task and it is a general perception that it conducts the task of
Competitive Examinations with full honesty. The minimum age and educational
qualification for appearance in this examination is 21 years and a Bachelors
(14 years of education) respectively while the maximum age limit is 30 years.
According to the estimates of FPSC a total of 10000 – 20,000 candidates apply
for an appearance in its annual Competitive Examination. On an average 9000
actually appear and approximately 250-500 candidates qualify the written
portion of CSS Examination. Out of these successful candidates a total of
100-150 (roughly 2% of the actual applicants) make it to this sacred corps of
bureaucrats.
1. History of Civil Services in Pakistan
The civil Bureaucracy is a
colonial legacy in this part of the world. The British used to rule the native
population through Indian Civil Service (ICS) and most of the officers in ICS
were British themselves. It was in the early 20th Century that the Indians also
started competing against the British and many Indians eventually made it to
the ICS. With the partition of India in 1947, the term 'Central Superior
Services' was used in Pakistan and the concept of All-Pakistan Services continued.
The latter consisted of the Civil Service of Pakistan and the Police Service of
Pakistan, whereas the Central Services included the Pakistan Foreign Service
and a broad category of Finance and other services. The Finance category
included the Pakistan Audit and Accounts Service, Pakistan Railway Accounts
Service,Pakistan Military Accounts Service, Pakistan Taxation Service, and the
Pakistan Customs and Excise Service. The Central Services other than these
included the Pakistan Postal Service,Pakistan Military Land and Cantonment
Service, Central Secretariat Service, and Central Information Service. Each of
these services had its own cadre and composition rules, specifying the total
cadre strength in terms of its number of positions.
With the Civil Services Reforms
of 1973 a new system of Common Training Program or CTP was introduced and all
of these occupational groups (12 at that time) were required to go through a
mandatory combined training at Civil Services Academy (CSA), Lahore. The batch
of officers who attended CSA in 1973 is recognized as “1st Common”. Up till 5th
Common the allocation of occupational groups was done after the culmination of
Common Training Program but from 6th Common onwards this task has also been
assumed by FPSC. Even till this day it is an official procedure that once the
Probationary Officers successfully complete their CTP then they undergo some
further Specialized Training Program (STP) in their own professional academies
Armed Forces and
Civil Services of Pakistan
Commissioned officers of Pakistan
Army, Pakistan Air Force, and Pakistan Navy have their own quota of 10% in
District Management Group (DMG), Foreign Service of Pakistan (FSP), and Police
Service of Pakistan (PSP). Usually officers of Captain Rank are short listed by
General Head Quarters (GHQ) and selected against this quota after the
permission directly by Chief of Army Staff before interview process.
Reform of Civil
Services
Despite the fact that Civil
Services of Pakistan have been still running on the pattern set out by British
Raj (no major change has been performed), the Musharraf government started a
major reform process of it. The task was to be performed by National Commission
of Government Reforms (NCGR) under the chairmanship of Dr. Ishrat Hussain, the
former governor of State Bank of Pakistan. The final report that was published
in September 2007 stated that four CSS cadres i.e., Pakistan Railway Service,
Pakistan Postal Service, Commerce and Trade Group, and the Information Service
of Pakistan, should be axed. According to the recommendation, Postal and
Railway Service should be made autonomous commercial bodies, with Information
Service be suspended till further notice. The report also highlighted broad
changes in the examination system, with the recommendation of a personality
test be made part of the selection process.
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