The seventh Pay Commission's draft
report to determine the new salary structure for the 5.5 million civil
servants in the central government has got riddled with several dissent
notes. The notes, mainly about bringing in parity between the top-ranked
Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the specialised central
services, argue that it will widen the talent base available to the
government to deliver increasingly complex services to a demanding
population.
But the dissensions could exacerbate
differences at the top of the bureaucracy in the Government of India,
already reeling from the impact of pay-related problems for the retired
armed forces personnel who have demanded 'one rank one pension'.
"There is a strong case for considering
talent in the government rather than being confined to choices within
some cadres," former expenditure secretary Dhirendra Swarup told
Business Standard. Swarup is one of the few non-IAS officers who became
secretaries in the government, under former finance minister Jaswant
Singh.
The notes are also a first for the Pay
Commissions, set up every 10 years by the central government to revise
the pay and allowances of central government employees. In the fifth Pay
Commission, economist Suresh Tendulkar had put in a dissent note but it
was on a macro theme suggesting a pruning of the bureaucracy and
relating wages to performance.
But this time the notes reflect the
sharp differences that have come up among the different cadres of
government services about their pay and promotion avenues. There is a
larger issue here. All the services taken together make up fewer than
150,000 people within the central government tasked with a mammoth level
of administrative responsibility for a country of 1.3 billion people.
So, frustrations among them could have far-reaching repercussions.
These men and women operate in a rigidly
differentiated world through an appointment system that places them in
cadres. The cadres almost mirror the caste differences in the larger
society. The top-most cadres are the all-India services that include the
IAS, Indian Police Service and Indian Forest Service. Of them, the IAS
are the most numerous, at 4,572 according to the Civil Survey Report of
2010, written by former cabinet secretary, K M Chandrasekhar.
Below them are about 45 cadres clubbed as central civil services, which include the IFS, IA&AS and IRS.
The impact of this pecking order came
out in the open recently in the list of empanelled officers for the post
of 60 additional secretaries. These posts rank just one notch below
that of the secretaries, who function as heads of department or
ministries in the government. Of those empanelled, only three (railways,
income tax and audit & accounts services) were from the non-all
India services. Swarup said the numbers were even lower than those until
the 1990s, when there were at least five non-IAS officers in the
central government ministries. At joint secretary and senior levels,
positions up to those of secretaries (senior administrative grade) in
central ministries, the share of other services is minuscule when
compared with IAS. Yet, this is where policies are shaped.
At the heart of the difference is a
two-year increment offered to IAS officers when they join vis-a-vis
other cadres. Since seniority within the government is decided on pay
scale, the higher start assures these officers of a higher position at
each grade. But as the IRS officers and others in their representations
have pointed out, this makes it impossible for them to compete for
additional secretary and secretary posts in the ministries.
But Chandrasekhar counters it saying
officers from most non-IAS services have enough options to be promoted
within their services. "There is need for both specialists and
generalists in the civil services. The Indian government is a massive
structure that demands many different skill sets".
To correct some of the problems, the
2010 report had suggested setting up of a Central Civil Services
Authority for officers from all the services after they completed 13
years of service. Each officer would get to choose an area of
specialisation for the rest of their career. It has not been implemented
so far.
The report of the Pay Commission, headed
by Ashok Kumar Mathur, a former judge of the Supreme Court, was held up
due to Bihar Assembly polls. The commission was given a four-month
extension in August. Besides Mathur, the others in the commission are
Vivek Rae (IAS) as full-time member, besides part-time members Meena
Agarwal (Indian Railway Accounts Service) and Rathin Roy, director,
National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). The commission
is attempting to paper over some of the differences before the report
goes to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The commission did not respond to
requests for an interaction on the contents of the report.
The differences have become so sharp
that social media platforms like WhatsApp have been flooded with often
derogatory comments from opposing cadres about each other, a first of
sorts. But both Swarup and Chandrasekhar held that such comments might
not be serious enough to test the smooth functioning of the officers
from different services when they were posted together.
Source : http://www.business-standard.com/
