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 remaining confined to limited
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: Business Standard
