Federal Government has decided to give yet another extension
to quota system. Under a recent decision the provision will be extended for
another twenty years. Thought the decisions needs to be approved by houses of
Parliament by two third majority but the same will not be a problem as most of
the political parties, saving MQM and possibly PTI, though one is not sure,
will support such a move. Putting
together the parties lack 114 members in needed in National Assembly to block
constitutional amendments. It is not much different in Senate either.
The constitution provides that all jobs under the government
of Pakistan, provinces and local authorities should be provided on merit and
merit alone without any discrimination. Article 27 of the constitution provides
that “no citizen otherwise qualified for appointment in the service of Pakistan
shall be discriminated against in respect of any such appointment only on the
grounds of race, religion, caste, sex, residence or place of birth.”
However, in order in order to ensure adequate representation
to different provinces and regions of the country, the framers of the
constitution inserted a proviso, which was to expire after ten years, allowing reservation of posts for persons
belonging to any class or areas. It was
hoped that by the end of that period existing gap in infrastructural
development and provision of opportunities to different provinces and regions
will be filed and reservation of seats will not be needed.
Similar provisions were found in constitutions of 1956 and
1962.
Under this provision governments, both federal and
provincial , fixed percentage of seats in government services for different provinces
and regions in accordance with numerical strength of the province/region in the
federation or the respective province. Thus the quota of all the provinces,
FATA, Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan was fixed in government jobs under the
federal government. In case of Sindh the
quota was further divided among the rural and urban areas, thus providing a
permanent division among non Sindhi speaking urban population of Karachi,
Hyderabad and Sukkur and ethnic Sindhis living in other parts of the province.
The proviso was to expire in August 1984. By the time the
date approached the country was under yet another Military government, which
without much ado extended the period for another ten years. The term expired in 1993. Government of the
day, lead by late Benazir Bhutto lacked two third majority required in both houses
of parliament to make constitutional changes. She continued with procedure nonetheless.
In 1999 Parliament passed constitution 16th
amendment act to extend the period allowed for the reservation of quota for
another twenty years, effective of course from August 1993. Thus the
discriminatory provision, which is otherwise in violation of the spirit of
constitution that was initially allowed for a period of ten years, was extended
for a total of forty years. On
Independence Day falling on Wednesday August 14, 2013 we will reach end of that
forty years period.
Now the government, accepting its failure to bridge the gap
between different regions and provinces has decided to extend the provision for
another twenty years. The decision has been taken without doing any objective
analysis of the policy.
The basic idea behind the policy is that there are stark
differences in availability of educational and allied facilities among
different regions of the country, making it necessary to protect the interest
of the people of under developed areas.
However there are problems with the policy which have to be
analyzed before approval of the amendment. Firstly, despite providing for quotas to different
areas since 1956 we have not been able to provide adequate representation to
different provinces/ regions in government sector. This means that there is an
inherent flaw in the policy which should be addressed.
Secondly, though there do exist a gap in infrastructural
development among different regions of the country but the same is more visible
within different regions of the province. Thus any provision of quota to a
particular province or region is virtually used by more developed part of the
province/ region keeping its under developed part out of the competition.
Thirdly, the reservation of quota impedes hardwork,
initiative and sometimes works negatively for allocation of jobs for the people
of same regions which the provision is meant to promote. For example every year
there are not more than a couple of seats for the FATA , Kashmir and Gilgit
Baltistan to be allocated through CSS exam conducted by FPSC . Resultantly many
able young people from the regions fail to get nomination despite qualifying due
to insufficiency of quota for the regions and persons with lesser scores from
regions of greater quota get selected. Many other in fact are discouraged from
sitting in the exam due to same reason.
More importantly availability of educational facilities in
Pakistan can be categorized more on the basis of class and income group than by
provinces, regions, religions and ethnicities. The kids of the rich and
affluent as well as other privileged classes, irrespective of their area of
residence, province, religion or sect, go to almost same type of schools [which
are always English medium], have services of similar class of academic staff
and allied facilities. Thus the sons of Baloch Sardars attend the same schools
which tutor the scions of land lords of Punjab, Sindh and KPK as well as
businessmen, industrialists and other affluent people from other regions of
country. For these people there is no gap in the availability of the
facilities. They do not need any sort of positive discrimination. Any
reservation of seats for them is only division of booty among the members of
the same class, which deprives the under privileged sections of the society.
On the other side is overwhelming majority which goes to
government schools, lacking teachers, buildings and other facilities. While the
rich originating from underdeveloped areas send their kids to better private as
well government run high gentry schools
and colleges, the poor from the same area have to walk for miles to go to
poorly run government schools which teach in Urdu. Now at the top of the unfairness, the entry
tests and examination for government post at higher grades are conducted in
English in which the privileged rich have been taught not in Urdu in which
these under privileged poor had to suffer.
If indeed there is any reserve quota is needed, it is for this
section of the society. What is needed is to do away with the regional quota
altogether. Most of the government jobs as well as seats in the professional
colleges and universities should be put in a joint pool to be filled on the
basis of strict merit. Some quota, for example twenty percent initially and to
be reduced later should be fixed for those attending the rural and Urdu medium
schools, are have studied and lived in the under-developed areas. The same
facility may also be extended to the disabled and under privileged sections of
the non Muslim communities. Yes under privileged sections of non Muslims,
because it is the caste Hindus and Anglos among the Christians who get most of
the benefits in the name of these communities while the under privileged
sections of these communities suffer like their poor Muslim brothers and
sisters.
