The Uneasy Services

The day after Civil Services Day, we need to ask: Is the civil servants8217; loud discontent really about money?

Yesterday, April 21, was Civil Services Day. This time the civil servants focussed on complaining about their salaries even when, following upon the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission, we, the people of India shall be paying an additional Rs 18,060 crore to them this year and an additional Rs 7,975 crore each year after that for their entire working life. All are unhappy. Everyone in government claims that they could earn much more than their present salaries in the private sector. We also know that the private sector is desperately short of managers. Yet government officers do little to leave the government and look for a private sector job unless they are compelled by circumstances such as blocked promotion routes. So there has to be something mysterious that keeps government officers tied to their jobs even as they complain continuously about their low salaries, convince themselves about the importance of their work to the nation and the corresponding need for higher salaries. The military specifically claims that its officers are leaving the service in large numbers because military salaries are low.

Whether all government officers would really get analogous compensation packages in the private sector is a matter of conjecture. Group B, C and D employees of the government, for example, are paid two to three times the salary of their counterparts in the private sector for much less work. Yet the union leaders of the C and D employees have already announced plans to bring out morchas against the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission. Group A employees have an additional grouse regarding the higher scales being given to the IAS.

On balance, there is no dearth of aspirants for government jobs. The large number of candidates trying to get into various government services each year through the UPSC makes it evident that government jobs are well compensated as compared to the private sector. So the salary couldn8217;t be as bad as it is being made out currently. Moreover, let us face it: historically the best personnel have seldom joined government. There is always more freedom and money in a booming private sector. So when the good ones gravitate to government jobs as their first option it is usually because there are very few jobs available outside of the government and the compensation package from the government is better or at least as good as in the private sector with the additional quality of being a completely safe job 8212; as safe as keeping your money in a savings account in the nationalised banking system. Then why is everyone within the government complaining? Could it be that they are all very demoralised? That the carping about salary is their way of expressing dissatisfaction about working conditions? About non-achievement?

Six studies done by the IIM-Ahmedabad for the Sixth Pay Commission say as much. They divided government departments into six groups and examined a variety of government work ranging from doctors working in big and small hospitals, engineers of the CPWD putting together a project, internal revenue officers collecting taxes, experts working for the Survey of India, staff in the postal services, ordinance factories, Central Police Organisations and the railways.

The IIM studies discovered that most of the time government servants were overworked. They worked in difficult, unhygienic and hazardous conditions. At the senior levels there was so much multi-tasking that it was impossible to discover the core task of a person. There was far too much hierarchy and in jobs such as engineering there was so much compartmentalisation that achieving any coordination between the departments was itself a major achievement. At the same time, there were few demands on actually fulfilling any task. The absence of quantifiable results was commented upon by the IIM researchers as one of the most important lacuna in the working of the government.

One might also add that when some of the secretaries to the government were asked to report on quantifiable achievements a few months ago there was a huge hue and cry in the secretariat with the chant 8216;how unfair8217; ringing loud and clear. On that occasion, reporting for the period July to December 2007, 46 of the 56 secretaries to the government had scored less than five out of ten with three senior-most secretaries scoring just 1.

The IIM studies shied from examining the role of the most important supernumerary manager in any government department, the minister in-charge, and his role in ensuring the achievement of targets. While the ministers have willy nilly acquired the powers of a CEO in pushing their wishes onto their subordinates, secretary to the department downwards, it could be that they were usually the ones to create the greatest hindrance in achieving targets since their personal target 8212; of winning the next election and a ministerial berth 8212; may not be in consonance with their departmental targets. However, no one seems to be complaining about such structural matters that militate against the achievement of targets. Is it because all our government servants know that such reform in government is impossible and therefore their grouse gets focussed on salaries?

Some salary un-related recommendations from the Sixth Pay Commission

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8226;No future recruitment to be made to what is presently Group D in government service comprising peons etc

8226;Additional pecuniary benefits for higher performance

8226;Performance to be judged on concrete end results

8226;Enhanced pay for nurses, teachers, constabulary, postmen and forest guards

8226;Bonus to be productivity linked

8226;Increments to be in the form of two and a half per cent of the total pay and the date of all increments to be July 1

8226;Among Group A services the high performers to be given an increment of 3.5 per cent

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8226;Pension to be 50 per cent of the last pay drawn irrespective of the number of years of service

8226;Only three gazetted holidays

The writer teaches contemporary Indian history at Panjab University, Chandigarh. He provided inputs to the Ayyar Committee 2007 on revamping the curriculum for induction training of the Indian Administrative Service