ISLAMABAD -  The federal government has summoned a meeting of the Central Selection Board within just two-and-a-half-month to promote ‘blue-eyed’ officers to grade-20 and grade-21, an official claimed.

The Establishment Division has issued a notification which said: “A meeting of Central Selection Board to reconsider afresh cases of officer belonging to various occupational groups/services and ex-cadres posts, remanded to the CSB by the prime minister vide order dated 21 February 2018 will be held on 19th March 2018 in committee room Establishment Division under the chairmanship of Chairman FPSC/CSB.”

It will be a one-day board meeting to review promotion cases of grade-19 and grade-20 officers of different services groups. Interestingly, the last CSB meeting, held in the second week of January, continued for three days. It reviewed promotion cases of over 500 officers and recommended their promotions.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had approved the CSB promotion recommendations of more than 200 officers and the Establishment Division has already issued promotion notifications of officers.

Talking to The Nation, a senior officer of Establishment Division express his astonishment over the upcoming CSB meeting followed within such a short span.

He said the incumbent government failed to arrange four CSB meetings in the past but it has called the second board meeting within in two months.

 He said that according to services rules, the CSB meeting should be held after every six months. The “The prime minister has called the upcoming CSB meeting to accommodate government’s blue-eyed officers who could not be promoted the next grade due to issues in their ACRs that surfaced in the last meeting,” he claimed.

The official said that most of the officers of the Pakistan Administrative Service group especially those who had staged a protest over the arrest of former Lahore Development Authority chairman Ahad Cheema will be promoted.

He said that the next CSB meeting will be the last meeting of the current government and it wants to oblige the officers to ‘utilised’ their services in the next general election.

The notification further says that Amir Haider Hoti MNA, Senator Saud Majeed, Muhammad Saqib Aziz, Secretary Postal Service Division, Amjad Ali Khan Secretary (Rtd), Mehr Khaliq Dad Lak, joint DG Intelligence Bureau, Amir Ashraf Khawaja Secretary Ministry of Federal Education and Training, Naveed Kamran Baloch Secretary National Health Services and Regulation and Muhammad Hashim Populzai Secretary Ministry of Overseas Pakistan and Human Resources will be members of the next board meeting.

Secretary Establishment Division, Secretary Cabinet Division and chief secretaries of all provinces will be ex-officio members of the board. Federal Secretary Interior, Inspector General Punjab, Shiekh Naseem uz Zaman, Commandant National Police Academy and Shaukat Hayat, DG National Police Bureau will also be part of the board meeting as “co-opted” members for PSP items only.