7th pay panel's draft report riddled with dissent notes
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 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.
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| BUREAUCRATS STRENGTH |
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.
