India needs to employ more Government Servants with decent Pay Package to ensure effective Governance
Recently the articles written by Financial Experts speak lot about the adverse impact of the 7th pay commission recommendation. They are too much worried about implementation of 7th pay panel report and its fiscal challenges to the government rather than the corrupted Politicians swallowing the public money to be spent for country’s development.
Recently Finance Secretary Ratan Watal told reporters..
“ We have communicated our concerns with regard to sustainability of public expenditure to Pay Commission. I am sure the members and chairman of the commission are aware of and will be sensitive to our concerns,” [See the News]
One article published in a leading daily says,
“The National Democratic Alliance government can hardly excuse itself for not taking necessary advance steps to withstand the adverse impact of the time bomb that is ticking away and in all likelihood will explode before the end of August (But it is now extended by four months) . Yes, we are talking about the Seventh Central Pay Commission and the implications of its recommendations”[see the article]
What we understand from these statements is ‘Revising the Pay and Allowances after ten long years for central government employees has been considered as time bomb by so called experts’.
It’s quite obvious that they don’t want to revise the Pay and Allowances of central government employees even after a decade. They speak lot about rationalizing central government staffs, downsizing the government’s man power strength to reduce the financial burden of the Government. But they dare not to speak about the fact that lower rung local body councilors/ward members become super-duper rich in lesser than five years.
Why don’t they come forward to find out the origin of the money the corrupted politicians were able to earn with in short span of their tenure? Why don’t they use their brains to curb the corruption to save the country from potential financial loss? Why don’t they try to expose the facts that tax payers money lavishly spent for nothing…? The present Government is inviting best suggestions for betterment of the country. The financial pundits are requested to concentrate and give suggestion for better utilization of 90 percent of the expenditure spent for various other aspects rather than focusing on mere 10% of expenditure spent on wage bill.
In our opinion the wage bill should not be construed an expense, since it is paid for service done by government staffs to run the government machinery. Without this work force government cannot function. Unless a decent pay package is provided to government staffs, the government cannot ensure good and effective governance.
As financial experts suggested, is it really required to downsize the strength of government servants in India..? Not only that it is not required but it has to be increased considerably. Statistics of Government employees across the world reveals that India has 1622 government servants (Central and State government employees) for every 100,000 citizens. In stark contrast, the United States has 7,681 government servants for 100000 citizens. If we look into the statistics in respect of central government employees only, there are 254 central government servants for every 100000 citizens in India. But the US federal government has 840 government servants for every 100000 population.
The above fact implies India need to recruit more government servants to increase the effectiveness of the government. Ultimately better governance can be ensured only by government servants not by politicians.
Eminent economist V.K. Ramachandran says: “One of the most important lessons of the economic history of modern nations is that the most crucial requirements of social transformation can only be delivered by the public authority. A government that does not pay for skilled personnel to deliver education, health and land reform is one that condemns its people to under-development.”[ See the Article: Ratio of Govt servants to population]
Through this data it is understood that India needs government employees more than the existing with decent pay package for effective governance. So let the Pay commission decide itself to recommend what should be recommended to central government employees to ensure better governance and of course betterment of their socio economic condition also.
[We welcome your comments on above article first published @ gservants on 17-11-2015]
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