Expectations from the New Pay Commission

Expectations from the New Pay Commission
Saumitra Mohan

Since the last pay commission recommendations and implementation thereof, lot of waters have flown down the Ganges. Now, with the talk of the Sixth Pay Commission in the air, the focus is again shifting to the various issues of civil service reforms including revision of the pay packet. Today, as the ‘Incredible India’ shines, the discrepancy in terms of pay and perks between the private and government sector jobs is only growing by the day. This discrepancy has made the private sector jobs so attractive, that today even the most popular and prestigious of the government jobs including the All India services are not able to attract the brightest and the brilliant. And if we are to believe a survey done recently by a popular magazine, then only eight per cent of our youth fancy a career in higher civil services.

Today, an IIM or IT professional gets two to three times more as starting salary than that of a group ‘A’ government employee. And this initial difference between their pay packets only widens with time as unlike the private sector, there is no system of performance based incentives and salary structure in the government. There is also much less inter se mobility in the government and almost no mobility at all between the public and the private sector but for some contractual and ad hoc jobs. And where such mobility is allowed, even there not much benefit in terms of salary and perks accrue. The career advancement in the government has almost nothing to do with the performance on job. The promotion is almost automatic and mechanical. Whatever performance appraisal exists is more of ritualism than anything else and there also the corresponding incentives and rewards are not commensurate to the service given. If an employee, because of his/her personal initiatives and hard work turns around the fortunes of an organization, it may have an impact on his future promotions and postings (not necessarily), but it definitely does not have much bearing on his/her pay packet but for the promotion-bound pay hike.

A hare and a tortoise are treated equally here. Though both can rest assured about the job security, those with drive, energy and vision, because of the frustrations stemming from poor pay packet or systemic constraints, either kick the job or fall into the mould of a stereotypical government employee. And that has become a great reason today for the youth to fancy private sector jobs more than a career in the government. Our military is already short of over 15,000 officers. Our doctors, engineers, IT and management professionals, nurses, teachers and many others are already rushing for the private sector jobs available in the country and abroad. At the slightest hint of a better opportunity outside the government, such people are putting in their papers. Wherever voluntary retirement schemes have been offered, it has been noticed that it is always the most able and the valued employee who quit than those who ought to have. And if the trend continues, then slowly but surely, the government jobs would become the happy stomping ground of the dull and the inefficient, with no drive and desire to serve the people.

In fact, there are many who argue that if you are looking for high-end salary and perquisites, then you should not enter government service where you enter more to serve the people than to make money. Believe it or not, the archaic ideas and ideals of the yore that you can serve the people only as a government servant have already vanished in the thin air. Today, you can very well be an MNC executive or an NGO functionary and make a difference to the people’s life. Moreover, the celebrated lordly respect and independence of action, once the hallmark of the higher civil services, is already a thing of the past. Today’s youth is much more cosmopolitan and broad-minded to be tied down to the concept of serving the motherland only through the instrumentality of a government job. He/she would very well go abroad, serve an MNC and still remain very much patriotic and nationalist. Today, a successful guy in a big MNC or private sector company with a fat pay packet and attendant perks and perquisites wields much more respect and influence than that of a higher civil service officer whose pay packet is comparably much smaller and whose perks are being continuously cut and pruned with the rationalizing of the government expenditure. Hence, the beeline for private sector jobs.

Those who are still entering the government service are usually from the lower or middle class backgrounds and from the countryside who could not afford the professional courses or are still not exposed to the new avenues available in ‘Incredible India’. Many believe that the rigours of entering civil services are not worth its while, given the poor pay and perks including the deteriorating service conditions on offer.

The basic issue today is that if we wish to continue to keep the higher civil and military services in the country attractive to the best in our country who would directly make a difference to the developmental processes through the policy making and policy implementation by way of putting in newer ideas and energy, then we shall need to make pay and perks offered a wee bit more attractive than it is now.

Despite being the most prestigious and most difficult to get government service, there is hardly any difference in terms of pay and perks of the higher civil service and those of the other government jobs of the centre and the states. Even though the entry to such service is the most difficult of the all, there is nothing to attract the youth in terms of pay and package except higher position with attendant higher responsibilities but with no corresponding pecuniary incentive unless you consider the underhand way of making money in a government job which has actually caught the fancy of many and has become almost synonymous with a government job.

Today, corruption has become the act of an artist. Sting operations notwithstanding, there are actually many civil servants who have mastered this art and believe that ‘self help is the best help’ but in the bargain not only lower the government revenue, bring a bad name to the government but also drive away the bright and the brilliant. A performance-based incentive system is a must today and it applies to a government job as much as it does to a private sector job. There is also a need for a stronger system of checks, vigilance and exemplary punishment to act as disincentive for those civil servants who are minting money unscrupulously at the expense of the government exchequer and still currying favour with the high and mighty using the strength of the same ill-gotten money.

Hence, the tendency among some members of the civil service to develop bias or allegiance towards the dominant political party or forces so as to avoid wilful and motivated transfers and to be rewarded with prized postings. And this is always at the expense of the honest and the upright who are not so easily moved by the pulls and pressures of the political machine and eventually end up becoming a silent spectator, throwing up their hands or simply quitting the job itself to sign up for an assignment in the private sector. So, government’s loss is private sector’s gain.

The truth is that a rationalized, performance-based incentive structure coupled with strong vigilance not only makes the system efficient by ensuring better service delivery, but it also fixes the black sheep in the system. And believe it or not, such a system will also, more or less, take care of the problem of corruption which has become the bane of our system. Though we can never fix those with the criminal desire to earn unlimited money, but with such a system in place, we shall definitely be able to bring on board many such black sheep and many more energetic, brilliant and motivated officers, if there can be an honest way to make money in the government itself.
* Saumitra Mohan is an IAS officer presently working as an Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly in West Bengal.
Address for correspondence:
Saumitra Mohan, IAS, Additional District Magistrate, Office of the District Magistrate, Hooghly-712101.
E-mail: saumitra_mohan@hotmail.com.
Phone: 033-26806456/26802043(O)/26802041(R).
Fax: 033-26802043.
Mobile: 91-9831388803/9434242283.