Whoever called it ‘Pay Com-mission’ must not have intended it as a call to pay bribe. But that’s what it has turned out to be for the citizens of this country in their dealings with the various arms of the Government. So if you want to get work done in a government department, you know what to do, with ‘established’ procedures for how to do it too. And despite political corruption stealing a march over it, bureaucratic corruption continues on such a scale that India is still ranked as one of the sleaziest nations in the world. And its corruption is matched only by its inefficiency: The length and thickness of the Indian red tape is next only to Red China’s. Says The Economist: ‘… the Indian administration has an abysmal record of serving the public. Most developmental spending fails to reach its intended recipients and is instead sponged up or siphoned off by a vast, tumorous bureaucracy. Indeed, failure to reform a bloated bureaucracy is putting the country’s huge economic achievements at risk’.
Well, the ‘bloated babudom’ is all set to get a bit fatter if the latest Pay Commission (no mischief afoot this time), the sixth in six decades of Independence, too becomes a reality. And there is no reason why it should not, given the present government’s charity binge. Pay Commissions are essentialy a socialist legacy, fossils from a bygone era wherein the Government was considered a ‘model employer’ and the public sector touted to occupy the ‘commanding heights of the economy’. It is an administrative mechanism to review the salaries of Government employees who range from IAS officers to LDCs and are spread over scores of departments and a huge hierarchy. But with the model employer failing to create a parallel model employee, going bankrupt as a result, and with the public sphere plunging from the commanding heights to demanding depths, Pay Commissions too should have fallen by the wayside.
But alas, this dangerous fossil is still alive and kicking. And the greater tragedy is that those trumpeted as the architects of economic reform, MSingh and PC … P. Chidambaram, not Pay Commission … have themselves turned out to be the demolition squad. The present FM, for instance, has presided over two pay commissions, the fifth in 1997 and sixth now. And the fifth Pay Commission has been solely held responsible for pushing the country over the fiscal precipice.To quote the World Bank:’ … the Fifth Pay Commission is the single largest adverse shock to India’s strained public finances’. But despite all the ominous financial portends, PC went ahead and worse, even forced the States to follow suit. While the Central salary bill doubled, the States’ commitment went up by over 75%. Many States, for the first time in Indian history, had no money to pay salaries! In 2001, TN government staff salaries were around 90% of the State’s expenditure.
But the hero of the Sixth Pay Commission is the Super economist turned proxy PM MSingh, with PC playing second hero. The demand for a pay commission started in right earnest, from the Left and its affiliated Unions for sure, soon after the UPA regime assumed power in 2004. The PM promptly formed a committee to look into the demand. And this committee, quite promptly again, advised the government against constituting another pay commission as the the country was ‘yet to recover from the damage caused to its finances by the earlier commission’. But MSingh, …promptly … ignored the advice, saying ‘we have already decided’, and formed the Sixth Pay Commission in mid 2006! Why a committee then? It was the Sardar’s joke on the nation! With the commission now coming out with its prescriptions a month ahead of schedule, MSingh and PC are singing a new tune now: The country can afford it! Really? Then are there not more deserving candidates for our ‘prosperous welfare State’s largesse? Indeed, with zealous ‘reformers’ like these who needs Comrades?
Not just the aforesaid ill-fated committee but many other committees and even the Finance Commission have questioned the rationale behind pay commissions and have suggested that they must be done away with. But parasitical habits die hard and Pay Commissions have become some kind of a once-in-a-decade political ritual that cannot be skipped. For the Unions and staff it is a divine guarantee, come what may. The ten year itch will start at the appointed time. But assuming that Pay Commissions wont go away, are they only about salary hikes? What of the scores of other recommendations about downsizing and rationalisation of the administration? For instance, the fifth made sweeping recommendations on reducing the workforce, abolishing of posts, reverting to a six-day week, to name a few. Even the current one has talked of many non-monetary aspects like reducing holidays. Besides, dozens of expenditure commissions and committees, at enormous expense, have laboured in great detail and put forth several worthwhile suggestions. But such sane and subtle voices are lost in the din of the poll tunes being heard endlessly on ‘FM channel’.
It’s possible that an individual government employee may feel aggrieved. Again, certain groups of Government staff do have a legitimate cause for grouse too. But there is no gainsaying that as a tribe, they are a big drag on public money. That a hundred million people should forever be pampering to the endless needs of just over four million for very little in return is not just bad economics but bad socialism too. And again, if the quality and quantity of work vis-a-vis the pay were to be considered, it also makes for bad management and HR practices. Indeed, the taxpayers are paying a stiff price for being badly governed!
Expectedly, the employee unions are not happy and have promised to strike work. We will strike back in these columns, as and when they do, for there is adequate ammunition in stock. For one, we think that not just Pay Commissions, but even unions for government staff themselves are a long surviving offence. But we will grant ‘em the right of ‘first strike’!
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