Year of Pay Commission correctives

Why is this happening? The glib answer is that young officers are ‘materialistic’ and do not possess the same desire to serve society which imbued their greying seniors. This is a self-serving argument. What about job satisfaction? Pervasive corruption? The irrelevance of professional competence, and the ignoring of merit? Obsequiousness and servility being rewarded, but the honest and efficient being sidelined? Above all, the promotion to high positions of officials who end up often in jails. This happens regularly not just in UP but almost everywhere else too. No doubt the Sixth Pay Commission will have something to say on this deteriorating situation.

Second is the problem arising from the current policy of continuing retirees in service under various subterfuges. The rules governing extensions and re-employment are clear. An officer should only be continued in service after retirement if no suitable officer is available to occupy these positions. This raises the moot question: why should such conditions arise? Has the incumbent ensured that no one has been groomed for his post? Indiscriminate extensions and re-employment block promotion opportunities for serving officials, which has a cascading effect down the hierarchy. The demoralisation caused demotivates them, and leads to more premature retirements.

And yet it is common knowledge that officials retiring from the posts of cabinet secretary, secretaries to ministries in the GoI, and chief secretaries in the states routinely have their services extended. All manner of posts are reserved for these worthies in a regular alphabet soup of organisations like BIFR (Bureau for Industrial Finance and Reconstruction), CAT (Central Administrative Tribunal), SAT (State Administrative Tribunal), CIC (Central Information Commission) etc. Each service has its own claim to such posts for the retirees, and it is no secret that organisations are especially designed to provide post-retirement sinecures for the favoured. Then, there is the vast region of inquiry commissions available to them. Indeed, the art lies for retirees to ensconce themselves in commissions concerned with resolving insoluble problems and then to continue serving them for ever. All these posts could easily be occupied by serving officials, providing them with greater promotional avenues and making their prospects more attractive.

Why is this happening? It is unclear what special qualifications are possessed by retirees to commend them for having their services extended. If merit is the qualification for extension and re-employment, some objective test needs to be devised by the Pay Commission to recognise it. Perhaps, a competitive examination might be considered. Currently, regrettably, considerable scepticism obtains about the qualifying merit involved; in fact, the belief is rife that the only special qualifications required can be expressed in two-word ribald sentences; the less polite being ‘boot licker’.

Unfortunately, the operations of the present system without any rules or guidelines or transparency adds to existing frustrations and demoralisation among young officers, who are voting with their feet. Hopefully, the Sixth Pay Commission will work to help address the issue.

The writer is a retired bureaucrat

prchari@vsnl.net