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,” 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” 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.” 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.