Chief Secretary of Punjab (Pakistan)

Chief Secretary Punjab
Incumbent Zahid Akhtar Zaman since January 2023
Reports to	Chief Minister of Punjab
Seat	Lahore
Appointer	Prime Minister of Pakistan
Website	Government of Punjab

The chief secretary of Punjab (Urdu: مُعْتَمَدِ اعلٰی پنجاب), also referred to as CS Punjab, is the bureaucratic chief and highest-ranking official of the Government of Punjab, Pakistan. The appointment of the chief secretary is made directly by the prime minister of Pakistan. The position of chief secretary is equivalent to the rank of federal secretary and the position holder usually belongs to the Pakistan Administrative Service.[1]

The chief secretary is the province's administrative boss as all the divisional commissioners and administrative secretaries of the province report to him/her. The CS in return reports to the chief minister of Punjab, however the chief secretary is not under the charge of the chief minister as only the prime minister can appoint or remove the CS from his position. The chief secretary also serves as the chief advisor to the chief minister and as secretary to the provincial Cabinet.[2]

List of chief secretaries

The following table lists down the names of chief secretaries that have remained in office since December 2003.

No.	Name of Chief Secretary	Entered office	Left office
1	Kamran Rasool	December 2003	October 2005
2	Salman Siddique	October 2005	March 2008
3	Javed Mehmood	March 2008	February 2009
4	Najibullah Malik	February 2009	April 2009
5	Javed Mehmood	April 2009	February 2010
6	Nasir Mahmood Khosa	February 2010	April 2013
7	Javed Iqbal	April 2013	October 2013
8	Naveed Akram Cheema	October 2013	January 2015
9	Khizar Hayat Gondal	January 2015	April 2016
10	Capt (Rtd) Zahid Saeed	April 2016	June 2018
11	Akbar Hussain Durrani	June 2018	October 2018
12	Yousuf Naseem Khokhar	October 2018	November 2019
13	Maj (Rtd) Azam Suleman Khan	November 2019	April 2020
14	Jawad Rafique Malik	April 2020	September 2021
15	Kamran Ali Afzal[3]	September 2021	September 2022
16	Abdullah Khan Sumbal	September 2022	December 2022
17	Zahid Akhtar Zaman	December 2022	Incumbent

See also

• Federal Secretary
• Pakistan Administrative Service
• Establishment Secretary of Pakistan
• Cabinet Secretary of Pakistan
• Chief Secretary Sindh
• Chief Secretary Balochistan
• Chief Secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
• Chief Secretary (Pakistan)
• Deputy commissioner

References

1. "Provincial Departments - Punjab Portal". www.punjab.gov.pk.
2. "Several bureaucrats in race to become CS". www.thenews.com.pk.
3. "Federal cabinet appoints Kamran Ali Afzal as Punjab chief secretary, Sardar Ali Khan as Punjab IGP". Dawn (newspaper). 7 September 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2021.