The offices of the Director School Education, Larkana Region and District Education Officer (Secondary & Higher Secondary), Larkana district, have been running without electricity and water for the last four years.
The sorry state of the state affairs at the education department in Larkana can be reflected by the fact that these vital educational administrative offices lack electricity meters and need Rs.45,000 for the installation of the meter and a separate pole mounted transformer.
Without the provision of electricity, the ministerial staff was seen working on their laptops during office hours when this Scribe visited both sites on Friday.
Due to the non-availability of electricity, the staff was even unable to use their office washrooms as they struggled against stench which became widespread owing to unavailability of water. The office of the Director had been shifted near District Courts in 2017, officials stated and the same was the position of DEO which also lies besides them.
Adding insult to the injury, major Officer’s posts have also been vacant as the post of Director which is BPS-20 has been occupied by Maqsood-ul-Haque Qureshi, who was posted in BPS-19 as a Director but his promotion has been denied to him which was due in 2014.
There are 150 sanctioned posts from BPS-2 to 20 at the Director’s office out of which all posts of ministerial staff are claimed as filled, but nine posts of the officers are still vacant due to refusal of timely promotions to the deserving officers in the education department. The officer’s promotion has been denied apparently to establish good governance which has created a crisis-like situation, as junior officers have been entrusted the job to look-after the charge of vital posts.
Post of Additional Director (BPS-20) has also been vacant since long because of the unavailability of senior officers. Out of six sanctioned posts of Deputy Directors, each of BPS-19, four were found vacant and two filled. Out of the four sanctioned posts of assistant directors, each of BPS-18, three are vacant and only one is occupied.
The sources also disclosed that the contingency quarterly budget, which is sanctioned to each director across Sindh amounting to Rs.50,000 is mostly utilized to cover travelling costs of the bosses to various schools in the entire Larkana division, but education department authorities have never taken pains to sanction budget for provision of electricity to these very important administrative offices.
Lack of seriousness on the part of the education department has left the operations of the department in tatters causing unnecessary delays to official work.
Officials further revealed that the office of District Education Officer is also running without electricity for years but they have managed to install one connection. On further enquiry it was disclosed that local Sepco authorities have removed cables from the poles because of the non-payment by the area residents but worst affected are the government offices which they never cared about.
The residents of Larkana have demanded the relevant r authorities to look into the issues faced by these major offices and resolve them on priority basis without further loss of time, so that official work is carried out without delays.