Central Government
Employees Strength – Task Force Formed to cut jobs if required – Budget
speech 2016 indicated that Govt would rationalise its human resource to
achieve maximum governance
Here is Business Today’s report on Central Government Employees Strength
The “governance and ease of doing business” section of the Budget speech
talks about NDA government’s “unparalleled” emphasis to good governance
with special focus on process reforms, IT-enabled government processes,
etc. Stating that the whole idea is to remove the irritants for
the public in their interface with government agencies, Jaitley
explains that a task force has been constituted for rationalisation of
human resources in various ministries. A comprehensive review and
rationalisation of autonomous bodies is underway, he informs.
The message seems to be favouring automation and less job openings in
the Central government services in future. While one can only appreciate
the government’s intention to provide quicker, transparent and
efficient services to its citizens, reduction of human resources need
not always achieve that goal. In some cases, even replenishment of human
resources could be the need of the hour.
HERE IS WHY
The Central government is already functioning with less number of employees than what is supposed to be its sanctioned strength.
Of the total sanctioned posts of 37.16 lakh in various Central
government services, over six lakh remain vacant today. A huge majority,
5.3 lakh vacancies,
are at the clerical and support staff level. There are over
50,000 vacancies among Group B level positions and close to 18,000 at
the Group-A officers’ level. A year ago, 4,802 IAS officers were in
position against a total sanctioned strength of 6,375.
The Seventh Central Pay Commission, in its report in November 2015,
informs that the current sanctioned strength of the Central government
is approximately the same as it used to be 10 years ago (37 lakh in
2006). In other words, rationalisation of human resources has been an
on-going process because of which the total sanctioned strength of 38.9
lakh in 2014 has come down to 37.16 lakh. The effective employee
strength, if one takes out the vacant posts, would be 31 lakh, a figure
that is closer to 29.82 lakh of sanctioned strength forty five years
ago (in 1971).
The total number of sanctioned posts was perhaps the highest in 1994
(41.76 lakh) as India’s economic liberalisaiton during that period saw
disinvestments in sectors like telecom and resultant reduction in
government jobs in the following years.
There are more reasons to believe that we may not be able to do away
with too many posts immediately. In a submission before the Pay
Commission, the Joint Consultative Machinery (JCM)-Staff Side had
pointed out that contrary to the common perception, 88 per cent of
Central government employees are either industrial or operational staff
or not administrative staff. It also points to the increasing trend of outsourcing human resources through contracts, another reason, perhaps, for less-optimal performance.
Finally, this is not the first time BJP government is attempting to
downsize the number of Central government employees. The first NDA
government under A.B. Vajpayee had brought in a plan to optimise (not
rationalise) the recruitment to Central government jobs in 2001. The
government wanted to bring in 10 per cent reduction in total sanctioned
strength in a phased manner over a period of time. As per the
“Optimisation Scheme”, all ministries and departments were mandated to
prepare the Annual Direct Recruitment Plan for each year in order to
prioritise the fresh intake of manpower. It continued for five years,
and was extended for three more years, even after the change of regime
at the Centre.
It was the Sixth Central Pay Commission which recommended the scrapping
of the scheme as it felt that while “multiskilling of the government
employees would increase their operational efficiency while
simultaneously optimizing the staff strength”, a blanket ban on filling
up of vacant posts across the board can impact effective functioning of
the government.
While appreciating the government’s intend to right size its human
resources given the changes in the work process due to technology and
consequent reduction of layers, the Commission suggested more
flexibility for effective service delivery. “Care has to be taken that
administrative delivery structures do not become hollow or thin in
critical areas”, it had stated.
By explicitly announcing the government’s decision to revise the pay
structure of the Central government employees on the basis of the
Seventh Pay Commission recommendation, Jaitley has committed to spend
more on salaries. However, it should not result in the finance minister
ignoring the warning given by the Sixth Pay Commission.
Rationalisation of human resources is good, if it is purely to improve
governance and efficiency. Cutting jobs with the sole objective of
reducing the salary burden may not be advisable.
March 10, 2016
Kalaivaraikalai
