Govt services quotas have always been a controversial issue. apparently the formula has been altered suddenly.
http://dawn.com/2006/04/04/nat21.htm
I wonder how useful or reasonable the removal of fraction will prove to be…?
Plus there were loads of other grievances about the system which the public all over the country has been voicing for a long time. No heed paid to those yet either.
Re: FPSC quotas
i guess it is a necessary issue otherwise the Punjabis will take most of these jobs, followed by urdu speakers and Pashtuns. Sindhis and Balochies wille the most under represented. If 5 places are given to Sindh - how do we know those 5 places are not given to Punjabies living in sindh.
to be honest such practices are part and parcel of an insecure state and they do supposedly safeguard minority seats. from what my karachi wal friend tells me most bureacratic jobs in karachi are filled by punjabies. i dont know how true this is but iw ont be suprised.
when wil the day come when it does nt matter what we are?
Re: FPSC quotas
Haris, my response doesn't directly address the issue you have talked about. I wanted to say something about quota system in general, as I have read and heard a lot of accusations about it.
In principle, I oppose any quota based system in Pakistan. But I'm ready to live with it because some of the people who are making noises about this quota in bureaucracy would be clamouring louder if a merit-based system were introduced. There are two things I hear all the time. Punjabis dominate army, Punjabis dominate bureaucracy. Nobody gives any indisputabale statistics.
Q: Who joins army?
A: A person who wants to join army, and cut the mustard in terms of physical and phsychological abilities.
Now if a group doesn't want to join army (because they join Navy or some other profession), they shouldn't tell us that they have been shortchanged. They didn't get what they didn't want to get. I had a junior in college (half Punjabi, half Mohajir) who wanted to join the army. He went for the physical test and fainted during the exercises. He couldn't join army. On the other hand, I had a class-fellow (a Niazi), son of a major, who went for the required tests and succeeded. Some may argue that he succeeded because his father was a major. It may partly be true, but I know for a fact that the latter was physically and mentally more capable. So we have another Niazi in the army and one less Punjabi/Mohajir there. I didn't make up these stories. Army doesn't forcibly recruit some people while telling others not to join them.
Let's talk about bureaucracy now. I have actully read the instructions and procedures for the Central Superior Services of Pakistan. (Two years ago). There are ten percent seats on merit. The rest is quota based, i.e, seats are divided among provinces according to their population. Some areas like FATA, Kashmir and northern areas have their separate quotas. (There is also rural and urban divide for Sindh). In other words, you compete with the people of your own province for your designated share if you are not among the top ten percent. Now these top ten percent people may all be Sindhis; they could be Punjabis; they could all be Balochs. Whichever group gets more seats in this ten percent may up their percentage and can get more than their population share. (This year the top position holder was a orphan of a rural background from north Punjab). People might claim that Punjabis dominate because they have higher population. So quota serves Punjab. But one thing they forget is that their share may slip if this quota based system were abrogated. What if the students of Urban Sindh win most seats in Sindh in abscence of any quota? What if FATA doesn't get a single seat for these central services? Or gets all the seats? Is the 'losing party' going to accept the results? No sir! They would be clamouring louder. One group is not inherently more capable than others, but we have some areas that are underdeveloped and underrepresented. That's why this quota is in place. The situation becomes more complicated when one group feels that they could do better without quota. The problem has been compounded by rural/urban quotas in a province.