The only victim of the increasing popularity of Rescue 1122, the City District Government Lahore Fire Brigade Department is now having troubles finding a suitable person to appoint as head even though the last fire officer retired almost a month ago, Pakistan Today has learnt. The previous fire officer Raja Altaf, grade 17, had retired early this year after which the additional charge of FO was given to Assistant Fire Officer Mazhar Shah, grade 17. According to well-placed sources, the acting FO Muzhar Shah is also set to retire in, leaving no eligible candidate to contest for the FO seat as all other officers were under grade 17.
It might be imperative to mention here that the employees of this department faced promotion issues in 2009. The CDGL Fire Brigade has always been known to be a poorly-operated department and has been a victim of bitter criticism on their performance, old age equipment and depreciating vehicles. Sources in the Fire brigade said the department had dipped down further in performance after Rescue 1122 was established. The sources further said, “The promotion problem has increased in scale and now we do not have an eligible candidate for the chief officer”. When Rescue 1122 was in initial stages, a great rivalry developed between the CDGL Fire Department and the Rescue 1122 service. The CDGL Fire Department Union had filed a suit against the Punjab Government for starting Rescue 1122, in which the court ruled against it. Amongst other issues raised by the then Fire Brigade Union president Munir Ahmed Khan, the issue of not promoting employees was central. He said the employees of Rescue 1122 were appointed in grade-11, while there had been no fresh appointments in the Fire Brigade Wing of the CDGL for the past 10 to 14 years. Adding to that Khan said almost 63 out of 375 firemen in CDGL had been working on daily wages for the past 10 to 12 years, while the rest of them were working in grade-5. He said these employees had not been promoted for the past 14 years and were denied risk allowance, while the workers of Rescue 1122 were paid an allowance.