Since the First Pay Commission was established in 1956 it is generally believed that all government employees benefit from it. Their salaries are revised and determined from time to time, here in this case for a ten-year period. But who are these government employees who benefits?
It is the creamy layer of the government employees who benefit from this pay rise. Take the case of a Chief Commissioner of Customs or Income Tax. The new pay commission will fix his salary at around 80,000 per month plus the perks like official car, accommodation and the usual extra income that comes unofficially. Now what is his work? No body has really examined what work these creamy layers of large organizations like Income tax or Customs are assigned or function. Their primary job is to waste at least a dozen employees at their disposal. There will be two peons, a driver, an officer on special duty to him and the staff under him and his personal secretary and junior personal secretary. He signs hardly two files a day but chats for hours with colleagues all over the country and perhaps orders service tea on an hourly basis. A service tea basically serves for at least three people and so the peons take the advantage of the rest of the tea and milk. Some of them pack the sugar and tea daily home or else it goes waste.
Now imagine a scenario without this post. His salary would employ at least a dozen employees and he already has a dozen. So altogether each top officer wastes twenty-four employees. Believe me we don’t have a dearth of such top-level officials in any department. Consider this. The number of Chief Commissioners of Income tax in Gujarat is more than the number of Lower Division Clerks in that particular department. Out of 3.3 million employees who will benefit from the implementation, 80 percent of the money will go to seven percent of this workforce. What a waste?
That is also the reason why the federal government's wage bill for serving and retired employees shot from Rs 218.85 billion in 1996-1997 to Rs 435.68 billion in 1999-2000 after the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations were implemented.
These are the creamy layers for whom the pay commissions work. And who threatens the government with dire consequences for setting it up? The poor class three and four employees. A World Bank report indicates that Indian government employee strength may not be too large but lacks balance in the skills. It pointed the Fifth Pay Commission as the 'single largest adverse shock' to India's strained public finances. The report says 93 per cent of the civil service comprised class III and class IV employees which means only seven percent takes away more than what they deserve. So 93 percent will strike work to serve for seven percentages!
Many wondered after the disbursal of arrears of the last pay commission why there was no improvement in the functioning of the government servants. Well it was because the creamy layer took the chunk of the money and it is anyone’s guess why its implementation destroyed the finances of the central and state governments.
But then why no corrections are made even after decades of such anomalies? That is primarily because the creamy layer group is so powerful that they lobby the government decisions in their favor year after year, commissions after commissions. Want an example to that? The Fifth Pay Commission's recommendations for reducing the government workforce by 30 per cent (which included the creamy layer too), abolishing around 350,000 vacant posts(which included the creamy layer too) and reducing the number of pay scales from 51 to 34 were never implemented.
On the contrary, the retirement age was increased from 58 to 60. Any government employee retires even before his retirement. During the period from 58 to 60, he prepares for the retirement and hardly is involved into work, especially the creamy layer. These creamy layers, during this two period, makes retirement plans in various ways which includes how much they can gather as quickly as possible, how much stationary they can get before they relinquish their office, how much tours they can undertake officially with their family to tourist places and how they can place themselves on a top position in any private firm after retirement so that their incomes that is shown mainly as agricultural incomes from non existent farms can be made legal.
If at all the government introduces a law to bring agriculture into the tax net, it will not be the big farmers – who take immense benefit from this – that will be objecting to this. It will be the creamy layer of the government service because if that option is done away with, it will be hell of a job for these babus to hide their wealth and at the same time show it in their property returns.
Another recommendation of the fifth commission or for that matter any commission will never be implemented is to link salary hikes to efficiency and administrative reforms. So another pay commission may not be the answer to the burgeoning problem of this disparity. What we need is a study of efficiency and working style of the government employees and how well they are placed to work and how much work each person is doing and whether it is justified. That will solve the problem forever.
Binu Alex
It is the creamy layer of the government employees who benefit from this pay rise. Take the case of a Chief Commissioner of Customs or Income Tax. The new pay commission will fix his salary at around 80,000 per month plus the perks like official car, accommodation and the usual extra income that comes unofficially. Now what is his work? No body has really examined what work these creamy layers of large organizations like Income tax or Customs are assigned or function. Their primary job is to waste at least a dozen employees at their disposal. There will be two peons, a driver, an officer on special duty to him and the staff under him and his personal secretary and junior personal secretary. He signs hardly two files a day but chats for hours with colleagues all over the country and perhaps orders service tea on an hourly basis. A service tea basically serves for at least three people and so the peons take the advantage of the rest of the tea and milk. Some of them pack the sugar and tea daily home or else it goes waste.
Now imagine a scenario without this post. His salary would employ at least a dozen employees and he already has a dozen. So altogether each top officer wastes twenty-four employees. Believe me we don’t have a dearth of such top-level officials in any department. Consider this. The number of Chief Commissioners of Income tax in Gujarat is more than the number of Lower Division Clerks in that particular department. Out of 3.3 million employees who will benefit from the implementation, 80 percent of the money will go to seven percent of this workforce. What a waste?
That is also the reason why the federal government's wage bill for serving and retired employees shot from Rs 218.85 billion in 1996-1997 to Rs 435.68 billion in 1999-2000 after the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations were implemented.
These are the creamy layers for whom the pay commissions work. And who threatens the government with dire consequences for setting it up? The poor class three and four employees. A World Bank report indicates that Indian government employee strength may not be too large but lacks balance in the skills. It pointed the Fifth Pay Commission as the 'single largest adverse shock' to India's strained public finances. The report says 93 per cent of the civil service comprised class III and class IV employees which means only seven percent takes away more than what they deserve. So 93 percent will strike work to serve for seven percentages!
Many wondered after the disbursal of arrears of the last pay commission why there was no improvement in the functioning of the government servants. Well it was because the creamy layer took the chunk of the money and it is anyone’s guess why its implementation destroyed the finances of the central and state governments.
But then why no corrections are made even after decades of such anomalies? That is primarily because the creamy layer group is so powerful that they lobby the government decisions in their favor year after year, commissions after commissions. Want an example to that? The Fifth Pay Commission's recommendations for reducing the government workforce by 30 per cent (which included the creamy layer too), abolishing around 350,000 vacant posts(which included the creamy layer too) and reducing the number of pay scales from 51 to 34 were never implemented.
On the contrary, the retirement age was increased from 58 to 60. Any government employee retires even before his retirement. During the period from 58 to 60, he prepares for the retirement and hardly is involved into work, especially the creamy layer. These creamy layers, during this two period, makes retirement plans in various ways which includes how much they can gather as quickly as possible, how much stationary they can get before they relinquish their office, how much tours they can undertake officially with their family to tourist places and how they can place themselves on a top position in any private firm after retirement so that their incomes that is shown mainly as agricultural incomes from non existent farms can be made legal.
If at all the government introduces a law to bring agriculture into the tax net, it will not be the big farmers – who take immense benefit from this – that will be objecting to this. It will be the creamy layer of the government service because if that option is done away with, it will be hell of a job for these babus to hide their wealth and at the same time show it in their property returns.
Another recommendation of the fifth commission or for that matter any commission will never be implemented is to link salary hikes to efficiency and administrative reforms. So another pay commission may not be the answer to the burgeoning problem of this disparity. What we need is a study of efficiency and working style of the government employees and how well they are placed to work and how much work each person is doing and whether it is justified. That will solve the problem forever.
Binu Alex
2 comments:
I strongly believe in what you say. It is time we prune down out govt machinery
READ THE STORY AND IT WAS A GOOD ONE.
AGAIN, THE PAY COMMISSION IS A RAY OF HOPE FOR MANY GOVERNMENT
EMPLOYEES WHO JUST WAIT FOR TEN LONG YEARS HOPING FOR SOMETHING WHICH CAN MAKE THEM FEEL AND LIVE BETTER. THEY ALSO KNOW THAT THE CREAMY PART WILL BE EATEN UP BY THE TOP OFFICIALS AND THE BULK OF WORK WILL BE DONE BY THE LOWER CADRES. BUT STILL SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING. AGAIN , THIS HAS BEEN A TREND SINCE THE Ist PAY COMMISSION AND VOICES ARE RAISED AT THE TOP BABUS, BUT THEY JUST DONT REACH THE CONCERNED OFFICIALS, AND IF THEY DO REACH THEY ARE JUST IGNORED.....
SO WE WILL FACE THIS TILL WE RETIRE AND WILLHAVE TO BE SATIFIED WITH OUR SHARE .
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