ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Ch Nisar Ali Khan Tuesday urged top brass of civil service to lead from the front in raising service delivery level, improving work environment of the public sector organizations, taking initiatives, showing leadership qualities and becoming role model for the junior lot.

An efficient, effective and dedicated class of state servants, imbued with spirit to serve the people, could play a decisive role in translating vision of the leadership into reality and to steer the country through numerous challenges that it faces, said the Minister.

The Minister was addressing participants of 106th National Management Course undergoing their mandatory training at National School of Public Policy before assuming senior most slots of the civil service.

The Minister said that at a time when the civil service was faced with serious challenges of human resource, capacity issues and most importantly trust and respect from the general public, the senior bureaucrats must rise to occasion and raise their performance level to revive the vacillating confidence of the public in their abilities.

As servants of the state, it is the duty of every civil servant to serve as guardian of the law and to do his utmost to be balanced, unbiased and accommodative while serving the public, observed the Minister.

Giving his remarks about the overall situation of the country especially the security situation, the minister observed that law and order has improved significantly during recent years as a result of concerted efforts by all stakeholders including the civilian governments, the armed forces, police, civil armed forces and intelligence agencies.

The minister said that we have never let political divisions come in way of security cooperation and have always extended maximum cooperation to the provincial governments regardless of their political affiliations.

He said that contrary to what is projected or claimed, the improvement in security situation is the result of shared efforts and credit for the improved security situation goes to all stakeholders. First and foremost, it goes to a soldier fighting the enemy inside or on the border, it goes to a police man who confronts any criminal or terrorist in a street, it goes to the ordinary citizen who suffers from nefarious activities of the militants but remains steadfast and always displays unswerving commitment towards the security of the motherland.

He said that our fight against terrorism has indeed been a success story. Pakistan has witnessed a sharp decline in terror related incidents. From a peak of over 2000 incidents in 2010, last year’s figure stand at 785 out of which 285 incidents did not involve any loss of life.

Talking about past and present security situation and various developments, the Minister observed that the present government with complete civil-military consensus pursued the option of dialogue with the militants to explore peaceful option to the problem. The Government gave 08 months to the process of dialogue to bear any results. He said that after the option of dialogue was exhausted, the military operation was launched with full homework and putting a place a robust integrated security mechanism to meet internal security challenges.

The Minister said that after National Action Plan was formulated, practical steps were taken and an effective mechanism was put in place for mutual intelligence sharing not only among various intelligence agencies but also between federal and provincial governments. The meeting later turned into an interactive session where the participants shared their observations and asked various questions about the security related issues.

On a question about the role of Rangers in Karachi operation and the issues of extension of their stay at regular intervals, the Minister reiterated that the services of Rangers were provided to the Sindh government to assist the provincial government in maintenance of peace in the metropolis. He said that though law and order was a provincial subject but the federal government has always extended every possible assistance to the provincial governments in maintaining peace and stability. As far as the stay of Rangers is concerned the federal government would strictly follow the legal course as given under law.

On border management and regulating cross border movement, the Minister observed that the fencing of the western border with effective surveillance mechanism would significantly help in checking illegal and cross border movement of unwanted elements.

Elaborating, the Minister said that the present government took the decision of fencing of the western border in view of frequented cross border movement. He said that when he took over as the Interior Minister, incoming and outgoing movement of individuals was recorded 30,000 to 50,000 on daily basis via Torkham border alone and that too without any documentation. He said that the present government has regulated this frequented movement by making the travel document mandatory for the crossing purposes. He said that by 2020, four more crossing points would be added to the western border in addition to the two existing crossing points. He said that within next 2-3 years, an effective border surveillance system would be in place on western border with watch towers, cameras and movement detection sensors.—PR