I happened to consult a manual of laws and regulations a decade ago issued by the government of Sindh in which I took a fairly long time to reach to a point of reference I required in order to cite a reference in a particular case as it did not have an index at the end of the manual. The index can facilitate a user to reach a particular reference, term, concept, place and phrase. For example, if a user attempts to find a particular reference about the term of either Anticipatory Pension or Extraordinary Pension, he / she has to go through the entire chapter of the manual containing the revised Pension Rules and Regulation. Similarly, the thick volume of the Sindh Local Government Ordinace-2001 neither facilities its users through its index nor it contains any glossary of terms. In this regard, I asked Syed Arif Raza, a senior government officer and well-conversant with the SLGO-2001 if it did not carry an index of terms alphabetically arranged in the end? He said that the compilers of the SLGO-2001 should have had in their mind this basic requirement of a manual of law as it would have made it user-friendly and a user of the manual could get a reference in the shortest time.
I can cite an example of a book that provides an exhaustive index in its end. Dr Jamil Jalibi has recently brought out the fourth volume of his well-researched Tarikh Adab-e-Urdu which provides the alphabetically arranged index containing hundred of names of writers, places, concepts and institutions. One can see particular event of literature by consulting the index in a short possible time.
Governor Sindh Ishratul Ibad has recently signed the Sindh Peoples Local Government Ordinance 2012. The text of the ordinance will be soon published in a compendium. In this regard, I want to invite the kind attention of the authorities concerned and compilers to edit the text of the newly signed SPLGO 2012 with an alphabetically arranged index to facilitate its users so that a reference can be found and cited quickly. It can promote a culture of citing references in documents. Employees and general public can also be guided according to the updated information.
JAWED AHMED KHURSHEED
Karachi