Lawrence Ziring in his book ‘Pakistan in the twentieth Century’ has argued that global developments following the outbreak of war in 1857, transformed the administration of British India from that of a commercial enterprise to one of geopolitical and strategic importance. Colonial bureaucracy administered sub-continent as a colonial possession through district magistracy system, strengthened British power to achieve their strategic interests and controlled the entire population until the partition of India. Its efficiency, impersonal, machine-like character and insistence on equality of all before the law were described as chief characteristics of steel frame British administration. However, in the words of Griffiths P, its inherent defect was its inability to produce sensitiveness to the feelings and sentiments of people which caused its unpopularity as it damaged the moral standing of colonial rule which eventually came to an end in 1947. Pakistan at the time of independence inherited a bureaucratic system which owed its structure to Indian Civil Service (ICS), and continued administrative legacies, traditions and values of its predecessor, which began to erode its image of public service. In the 1950s and onward, political instability, leadership crisis, delay in constitution-making, stress and strain in civil-military relations, inept political system created opportunity for bureaucracy to step in to fill the power vacuum. In the absence of local government, bureaucracy was able to monopolise power, dominate government institutions, hold key positions in central and local administration and maintain status quo for several decades. Nevertheless, Goodnow found that in the 1960s due to fear of people’s revolution, bureaucracy was in dilemma of developing educational, commercial and political institutions that will eventually challenge its monopoly of administrative power. Bureaucracy has remained embedded in a complex political system, involved in making public policies which are executed by federal and provincial bureaucracies During the Ayub’s era of bureaucratic domination, the Pay and Services Commission reviewed the structure and organisation of civil service and suggested reforms for elimination of customs and attitudes of colonial times. Further reforms in bureaucracy were introduced in the year 1973 which recommended for abolition of cadre system, establishment of unified national pay scale, discontinuance of reserved key positions for elite cadres and also introduction of lateral entry. However, neither these reforms under civilian government of ZA Bhutto nor the devolution of power plan under the military regime of Pervez Musharaf were successful in transforming elite service into a real public service as per the aspirations, people have even today for that kind of a service. The fact is that bureaucracy has remained embedded in a complex political system, involved in making public policies which are executed by federal and provincial bureaucracies. Under this system, political elites have always wanted bureaucracy to work according to their whims and desires and thus, in past they did not bring about genuine reforms in the fear that independent and effective bureaucracy will undermine their power and prestige by working independently without succumbing to political influence. Under the recently announced reforms by government, a new method based on performance evaluation report (PER) as an alternative to Annual Confidential Report will be put in place to improve performance of various echelons of bureaucracy. Under the new rules, premature retirement of under-performing bureaucrats will be used as means of check and balance and to increase efficiency and effectiveness of civil bureaucracy. New policy of appraising performance, no doubt is important as it is being eulogized by some people as a positive initiative of government. Notwithstanding, there is need to ensure that these rules will not be used as a political tool to get rid of some public servants by tagging them as dead wood. Further, rationale for these reforms may be communicated about how these new rules are different from that of the existing Efficiency and Discipline rules promulgated in 1973. The goal of monitoring bureaucratic performance and reforming its work culture can be achieved by upholding rules and implementing regulations on the basis of merit, instead of making bureaucracy redundant, powerless and vulnerable to political exploitation. Efficient and transparent public service provided by bureaucratic apparatus at grassroots level with ability to innovate and improvise local resources for the benefit of people is considered as a key indicator of good governance and vital for democratic system. For effective delivery of public service bureaucracy needs administrative competence which comes through professional education, experience, training, capacity-building, pay incentives, career advancement, security of tenure, freedom of work, development of required leadership style, teamwork skills and exercise of powers as per laws of land. However, there is a common perception in our country that our bureaucracy in its present form, lack most of the above attributes and thus being slave to routine work it has limited ability to reason and critically analyse the situation for creating problem-solving techniques. Study of public service indicates that our civil service suffers from its inherent limitations which make it harder for bureaucrats to lead the way in the time of crisis mainly because they have habit of doing work only in a familiar way which revolves around bureaucratic procedures and conventional wisdom. Thus, bureaucracy can only perform its duties in effective manner if it grows impersonal and in the words of Marx Weber “de-humanised”, neutral and accountable to people. Nevertheless, new reforms as nostrums of present times can work in our highly politicised environment, if they are implemented in a transparent manner. More importantly, what we really need is to make bureaucracy more responsive, less susceptible to immense political pressures, instrument of change, public service oriented, creative and innovative in ideas and emotionally resilient in its public dealings. A cursory look at performance of our bureaucracy does not paint a flattering picture of public service in usual and unusual situations. In today’s strange circumstances, Pakistan needs bureaucracy which should keep the country running through this acute crisis engendered by pandemic virus. At this critical juncture, our civil service has been unable to mobilise communities, control inflation, prevent profiteering, hoarding and smuggling of food essentials, coordinate relief efforts and handle the disaster as per expectations of people. It is widely believed by people that incapacity of health bureaucracies to fight with pandemic may put our efforts in disarray and generate the symptoms of incompetence in these times of grave emergencies. Thus, the efforts for reforming bureaucracy must be aimed at increasing effectiveness and bureaucratic competence while keeping eye on future. We need bureaucracy with vision and ability of understanding global challenges as the pandemic crisis could be a wakeup call for preparing our institutions to deal with future calamities and effects of climate change, which has put a new dimension in our current academic debate on improving bureaucratic performance in managing all types of looming crises. The writer is the Director of Pakistan Study Centre, University of Sindh, Jamshoro, and can be reached at shuja.mahesar@usindh.edu.pk.