The cabinet has approved a public administration ministry proposal to fill up 1,638 vacant posts in 36th Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) cadre from merit list yesterday. The approval was given at the yesterday’s cabinet meeting, held at the secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair. Due to an inadequate number of qualified candidates for the reserved quota for freedom fighters, their children and grandchildren, women and ethnic minorities, the posts in the 36th BCS remained vacant. According to a member of the cabinet, the 30 per cent quota for freedom fighters, their children and grandchildren, women and ethnic minorities in the cadre service will remain, but posts vacant under the quota due to the unavailability of qualified candidates would be filled up in future from the regular merit list.