The Hindu Business Line : Reject it outright

IT IS difficult to make any sense out of the puzzling behaviour of associations and trade unions of employees of the organised sector. Despite knowing the parlous state of the finances of the Central and State governments, they have given a strident call for the establishment of a Sixth Pay Commission, or else. Already low in public esteem for their lack of accountability and efficiency, they could not have endeared themselves to the people at large with this demand.

Let us take the government employees first. Their total additional salary bill, after the implementation of the recommendation of the Fifth Pay Commission, benefiting more than two-crore employees in the Central and State governments, public sector undertakings, local bodies and aided institutions, touched an astronomical Rs 70,000 crore. That was four years ago, and could only have swollen to a mind-boggling financial outgo on emoluments alone by this time.

The Government, in its impulsive rush to placate this pampered section of the population, has simply put in cold storage the four very important pre-conditions that the Commission had imposed for granting the recommended pay increases. One was a cut of 30 per cent across-the-board on the total number of civilian posts, over a 10 year time-frame, at the rate of three per cent per annum, roughly equivalent to the number expected to retire each year. Second, all vacant posts, numbering over 3.5 lakhs should be abolished and, that there should be a total freeze on fresh recruitments in the categories of supporting and auxiliary staff and a reduction in the intake in all services that operate at the level of executives and supervisory staff. Third, a law should be enacted prescribing a statutory ceiling on total sanctioned posts in the Central Government. And, fourth, stringent norms should be laid down to measure the productivity of each category of employees in order that laggards could be sent home packing. Disregarding these caveats, the Centre just opened the financial floodgates. The State governments blindly adopted the same pay scales for their own employees, although their duties and responsibilities can in no sense be equated with those working in Central Ministries.

The Government should make it clear that until the number of those below the poverty line is reduced to a specified figure, there will be no further upward jacking up of salaries of the privileged few.

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