LAHORE: A majority of PMS officers throughout Punjab registered their peaceful and silent protest by working in their offices and in the field while wearing black armbands.
This unique mode of protest had been deliberately adopted by the PMS both in the field as well as in the secretariat to raise their collective voice against the betrayal and maladministration meted out to them by the DMG officers posted in Punjab and led by the Punjab chief secretary.
The chief secretary, in a meeting with the Punjab PMS Officers’ Association, held on March 15, accepted that he would address all the issues pointed out by the association and even fixed deadlines for practical implementation of the decisions taken in the meeting. Most important among these were the creation of deputation, training and leave (DTL) reserve posts as well as encaderisation of posts wrongfully and deliberately left out of the list of posts notified as cadre strength of Services and General Administration Department. These two tasks, as promised and decided by chief secretary, were to be completed by March 22 but had not been completed.
The association told the PMS officers to continue with black armbands till at least the above mentioned two commitments of chief secretary were not honoured. The silent protest would go on in an even stronger manner by informing those few officers who missed out on Tuesday due to communication gap.
According to PMS officers, they had decided, as a policy, not to solve any issue unless people from every walk of life took to the streets.
