Balochistan dismisses 72 more doctors, total reaches 200

QUETTA: The Balochistan government has dismissed 72 more doctors for prolonged absence from duty, taking the number of provincial employees sacked for unauthorised absence to 200, Chief Minister Mir Sarfraz Bugti said on Saturday.

Bugti said the dismissals were part of a province-wide drive against absenteeism in the health department. He said his government had installed an artificial intelligence-based attendance system in the department for the first time to track staff attendance and improve accountability.

The Express Tribune reported the same announcement under a different count, saying 102 absent employees had been sacked. ARY News put the number dismissed in this round at 72 doctors, with a cumulative total of 200 government employees. The two figures could not immediately be reconciled.

Bugti said Rs410 million had been deducted from employees' salaries over disciplinary violations. Show-cause notices were issued to 11,000 employees for negligence and failure to perform their duties, and departmental proceedings are under way against another 800, he said.

In a post on X, the chief minister wrote that the attendance system had begun producing results and that employees who stayed away from work had been removed. "Government employees are public servants," he said, according to ARY News, adding that no one would be allowed to draw a salary while sitting at home and that negligence in public service would not be tolerated.

He also shared the official notification of the dismissed employees on social media.

The dismissals cover doctors and other staff of a health department that serves a province where large districts have few doctors posted at basic health units, and where absenteeism has repeatedly been raised in provincial assembly proceedings and in reports by the health department itself. Bugti did not give a district-by-district breakdown of those removed, and the notification shared on Saturday was not reproduced in full by either outlet.

The chief minister did not say whether the dismissed employees would be given a right of appeal, or how many of the 200 removed so far were doctors and how many belonged to other cadres. ARY News reported that the 72 dismissed in the latest round were all doctors.

The action follows the provincial government's earlier rounds of dismissals and salary deductions, which Bugti described on Saturday as an ongoing process rather than a one-off exercise.