ISLAMABAD: While the news media remained focused on the defence ministry’s application to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) for cancellation of Geo TV channel’s licence, it was business as usual at the Prime Minister’s Office on Wednesday where Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif spent a busy day.

The prime minister ordered reshuffle in the federal bureaucracy besides holding two lengthy back-to-back meetings on the state of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and the most important one on the schedule of loadshedding over the next four months.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Nadeem Hassan Asif has been appointed secretary of the establishment division. Before that Mr Asif was working as principal secretary to the president, a comparatively unimportant assignment within the federal bureaucracy.

Prior to his posting with the president, Mr Asif also served for a short stint of around six months at the prized position of Chairman of the Capital Development Authority (CDA). But he couldn’t pull along well with members of the CDA board. Mr Asif has replaced Mr Shahid Rashid in the establishment division, who will now serve as the secretary of statistics division, not a sought-after assignment.

Another important posting was of new secretary of industries, Raja Hassan Abbass. The government is working on plans for privatisation of the Pakistan Steel Mills, which falls under the administrative control of the ministry of industries. Ms Rukhsana Saleem will be the new secretary of climate change, a position earlier held by Mr Abbass.

Sikandar Sultan Raja, a Grade 20 officer, has been sent to Gilgit-Baltistan as the Chief Secretary. His possible transfer from the position of the Director General of Immigration and Passports may be due to his differences with the Minister for Interior, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, his reporting boss. An official of the passport office told Dawn that Mr Raja had earned the ire of Chaudhry Nisar by objecting to his decision to allow the Foreign Office to send their officers on postings abroad which were actually meant for passport office.

In his letter to the interior minister, Mr Raja had argued that since the staff of the passport and immigration office had served on positions in foreign missions to deal with issuance of machine readable passports, the assignment couldn’t be handed over to the Foreign Office.

Chaudhry Nisar, according to the sources, had taken exception to his objection. Mr Raja has replaced Younas Dhaga, who will now work as the secretary of housing and works, a position which has been vacant for quite some time.

The prime minister also approved promotion of 10 officers of Inland Revenue Service (IRS) from Grade 20 to 21. They are: Sardar Munawer Zaman, Ms Seema Majeed, Ghulam Kazim Hosain, Sajaad Haider Khan, Muhamamd Irshad Nadeem Dar, Waqar Ahmed, Lubna Farrukh, Ikram Ghani, Tariq Pashaa and Tasneem Rehman. Eight officers of the Foreign Office were also promoted to Grade 21. They are: Iftikhar Aziz, Tasneem Aslam, Afrasiaab Mehdi Hashmi, Sohail Mehmood, Khalid Usman Qaider, Ayaz Hussain, Farooq Amil and Nadeem Riaz. And three cases recommended for promotion from Grade 20 to 21 were sent back to the Central Selection Board.