Islamabad: Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has emphasised the need to make civil service recruitment more inclusive and domain-specific. Presiding over a multi-party consultative session on civil service reforms in Islamabad today, he stressed the importance of establishing a meritocratic leadership by linking appointments and promotions more closely with competence and demonstrated performance.

According to Radio Pakistan, Ahsan Iqbal highlighted the necessity of digital literacy in public administration, urging civil servants to be prepared to use artificial intelligence for improving decision-making, productivity, and public service delivery. He outlined a framework for civil service reforms aimed at building a specialised, merit-based, accountable, and technology-enabled public administration capable of effectively responding to Pakistan's contemporary development challenges.