AFTER the Federal Government, the Punjab Government too has initiated a major rightsizing move, aimed at reducing the size of provincial departments and abolishing surplus posts as part of a restructuring plan designed to promote efficiency and cut expenditure. A committee has been formed to identify redundant posts and recommend abolition and merger of departments.
Punjab is the largest province of the country and is the major employer, especially in education and health. The incumbent government, led by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, is aggressively implementing a welfare agenda and it definitely requires the field force to implement people-friendly policies. Similarly, creation of more tehsils and districts means need for more manpower to run the administration. However, it is known to all that with the passage of time redundancies do crop up besides overlapping of functions and responsibilities of departments and ministries due to politically motivated decisions of the successive governments. It was, perhaps, with this in view that in June 2024 too that a 13-member strong committee of provincial ministers and administrative secretaries was constituted to identify functions, which are being discharged by the Punjab Government through excessive expenditures from the public exchequer and safeguard those assets and resources in public interest.
It is not clear what transpired after the earlier move and why there arose a need to constitute another committee. We have been emphasizing in these columns that there is no point in saving money at the cost of delivery of services to masses. There is already a shortage of qualified teachers and health staff in the government educational institutions and health facilities. No doubt, the government is stepping back from its responsibility to provide more and better educational and health facilities due to undue focus on privatization of schools and hospitals but people will be the ultimate sufferers as the private sector generally lacks credibility to treat these two sectors as noble professions. Unfortunately, there is also a tendency to wind up organizations set up by one government and create more without proper justification. Creation of departments and posts should be strictly on merit.
