ISLAMABAD Faced with plethora of other issues, the federal government has ostensibly put on the shelf its own initiative regarding the verification of bureaucrats degree. The apathy of the authority concerned is testimony to the fact as the government has not even issued a reminder for submission of degrees despite passing of the deadline a couple of weeks ago, which shows that it has decided to close this chapter, cabinet division sources told TheNation. There are chances that those government officials who had submitted their degrees in relevant administration department might take back their academic certificates, the sources added. It was also learnt that since the issuance of government circular in this regard, just less than 20 per cent of government official had submitted their degrees. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in an official announcement a couple of months before had directed the Establishment Division that educational certificates of the employees working in all federal government institution be verified for authenticity from their the respective of institutions. He reportedly had also set a two-month deadline from February 5 for completion of the verification process. As per the official circular, the sources said, the federal government officials of grade 17 to 22 were asked to submit their original educational certificates for verification to administration department concerned till March 20. But the deadline passed and the authorities even did not proceed for verification of the submitted degrees, said sources. Background discussions with bureaucrats left the impression that government might not touch this subject in coming two to three months while there were also chances to dump the matter for good. Some officials complained that the time given for the verification of such a large number of government employees degrees was too short, making it difficult to complete the task. The In its continuation it was said that academic certificates of hundred of parliamentarians were still not verified even passing more than nine months. A number of attempts were made to contact Cabinet Division Secretary Nargis Sehti but her cell phone was found switched off.