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By Shah N. Khan
Our elders used to say Politeness is as much concerned in answering letters within a reasonable time, as it is in returning a greeting or salam immediately. But on account of indolence, insolence and inefficiency of the bureaucrats, Late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto popularized the term "Noukar Shahi" but things did not improve when he took over as the President and later as Prime Minister. And things deterioted to great extent in the tenure of the PPP Government. Now the Ministers etc. have set worst example of neglecting the letters written to them. Niether the minister nor their Public Relations officers care to acknowledge or take action on the letters except passing on to the subordinates to sleep over them. Nazims and other officials of the City Governments and organizations like Karachi Water and Sewerage Board appear to the worst offenders. Even Karachi Electric Supply Corporation and Pakistan Telephone company do not care to reply to the letters or emails sent to them. A couple of years a press report indicated that the Senate unanimously passed a resolution of a Senator, which made it binding upon all secretaries of the federal ministries and institutions under the control of the federal government to respond to every letter, representation or a note sent by a member of parliament to them within 21 days. They should have resolved to deal with the complaints of the public also in this manner at all levels. At present the complaints of ordinary people go on deaf ears or in waster basket, which is a sad display of incompetence and lack of administrative acumen. Most of the parliamentarians in the West encourage people to write to them by mail or email. And they acknowledge letters promptly with another letter if some action was needed. Besides the ICS officer who came to Pakistan, there have been few people in the Government who insisted on prompt replies to the letters written to their department. Late F. D. Douglas was PR Secretary to Late Liaquat Ali Khan, First PM of Pakistan. His amiable personality, courtesy both in speech and writing and meticulous effciciency is still remembered by many. Late Nasim Aun Jafri, Secretary Federal Government, insisted on the procedure of registering every letter and maintaining a record of replies sent with a follow up system which was adopted n the Corporation when be took over as its chairman. So did Engineer Syed Muzzaffar Ali Shah who after taking over as Chief of Karachi Water and Sewerage Board. He issued an order to send a copy of each letter written by different departments to master file for him to peruse. What made him more concerned was the fact that the number of letters and complaints written by the consumers were lying pending for several months despite over-staffing. And the number of letters written each day was too small. On the average an officer wrote or signed hardly two or three Internal memos. He insisted on proper maintenance of record of incoming mail and its disposal. He was appalled to find the poor quality of replies with grammatical errors and negative attitude besides inordinate delays. But soon after his transfer people forgot thsoe instructions. Many other Senior bureaucrats and executives like D. M. Qureshi, H. U. Beg, Qmaruddin Siddiqui, Nisarun Nabi, Muzzaffar Ali Shah, Inamul Haque and few others were very particular about prompt handling of correspondence. If every civil servant and minister adopts their kind of attitude things would improve and the stigma of inefficiency on the Government and municipal offices would be removed.
Let us hope it happens.
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