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COVER
STORY: BUREAUCRACY
Contd...
Checking
numbers alone won't help
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| BUSINESS
AS USUAL: With little work on their hands, babus often bide time |
In
1997, the Fifth Central Pay Commission (FCPC) suggested a 30 per cent
cut in Central government jobs over 10 years. It also recommended that
the seven-step executive ladder of the government, from secretary to under
secretary, be shortened to only three. "There should be a general
rule that no file would be allowed to travel to more than three hierarchical
levels before a decision is taken." Noble sentiments that have remained
on paper. The seven rungs persist and salaries and perks have increased
dramatically after the FCPC's recommendation.
The FCPC
argued that health being a state subject, there should be just one secretary
in the Health Ministry looking after health, family welfare and Indian
systems of medicine. The ministry merrily continues with three secretaries
for these departments. In the Cabinet Secretariat, there are as many as
five secretaries dotting the landscape. Though the Ministry of Communications
has corporatised its core responsibility-the Department of Telecom-Sanchar
Bhavan still has four secretaries. There are separate departments, with
a secretary in each, for industrial policy and promotion, industrial development,
public enterprises, heavy industries, and small-scale industries. In the
Finance Ministry, there is a special secretary each for banking and insurance
even though banking is regulated by the Reserve Bank of India and the
monopoly era of state-owned insurance has ended, with a regulatory body
in place.
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| Motto
of the Babu: wages for attendance, over time for work |
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Illustration
by Jayanto
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The continuance
of a banking secretariat in the Finance Ministry-like many such sagas
of endurance-has the politicians' blessings. Back in 1985, when V.P. Singh
was finance minister, he promised to abolish the banking secretary's post.
He wove in and out of the prime ministership meanwhile, and banking was
liberalised, but the secretary still stays because he doubles as the politician's
finger in the pie.
Similarly,
in the pre-WTO days, the commerce secretary could apply his discretion
on over 10,000 items in the restricted list of import. It is only a few
hundred now. Still he maintains an elaborate office. Expenditure Reforms
Commission Chairman K.P. Geethakrishnan says that "not much is left
in the post of secretary except the lure of the job in the IAS community".
But the bureaucracy still enjoys the perverse satisfaction of delaying
decisions. If the government needs to be downsized, the matter will first
go to a "committee of secretaries" which, in turn, would appoint
a "group of secretaries" to have the last word. It is an ingenius
way of perpetuating the illusion of power.
The bulge
in the bureaucracy is fairly uniform. Lal's Group C is no doubt the largest
of the four "castes" of the Central government. Its number is
an awe-inspiring 2.35 million out of the total strength of 3.72 million.
That 63 per cent comprises not only clerks but accountants, junior stenographers
and Central excise inspectors (posts in great demand). The undeniable
skills of some of them have been overtaken by technology-like the man
at the telephone exchange whose switching job is now computerised. Many
more have become expensive appendages in a cash-strapped government unable
to sustain an army of apple-polishers.
Keeping
the Group C babus company in irrelevance is the second largest chunk,
the Group D-the peons, daftaries, safaiwallahs, farashes (who lock rooms
after work), gardeners and record keepers. They are a million strong,
representing 29.44 per cent of the Central government's civilian work
force. The two groups, together with nearly a half of the first supervisory
tier, the Group B, form the non-gazetted segment-a massive 94.83 per cent
of all civilian jobs in the government. Though they are not paid a king's
ransom, the highest salary in Group C being around Rs 10,000 a month,
the expenditure on the non-gazetted employees accounted for 63 per cent
of the total spend of Rs 31,066.03 crore on pay and allowances of civilian
employees in 1998-99.
Contd
Pg 3
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METRO TODAY
If
planned well, the quake could be the Keynesian opportunity for Yashwant
Sinha to trigger growth, 
