Sounds odd, but the highest paid Indian bureaucrat till 1959 was the
railway board chairman and not the cabinet secretary. The top rail
bureaucrat, who was earlier called chief commissioner of railways, drew a
basic salary of Rs 3,250 per month, a smart 8.3% more than that of the
cabinet secretary, the senior-most bureaucrat in India. But as the
fortunes of Indian Railways dwindled over the years — its market share in
freight movement has shrunk from 90% in 1950 to 30% now — the clout of
the rail bosses and their corresponding rank and pay have also slipped.
Today, the railway board chairman and eight other top rail babus receive
a salary equivalent to a government of India secretary, a scale which as
many as 230 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and 40 Indian Police
Service (IPS) officers also draw. For good measure, the cabinet secretary
now not only draws a higher salary than the railway board chairman, his
superior rank comes with betterperks including a bungalow at Prithviraj
Road located in the heart of Lutyens' Delhi.
Meanwhile, the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), a 5,541 officers-strong
cadre responsible for collecting direct taxes in India, now claims that
IRS should get better pay and perks than IAS. The entry-level salary for
all Group A Central services is the same now, but thanks to two more
increments and faster promotions, IAS maintains an edge over others. The
basis for this claim? "Today, IRS — not IAS — is the revenue collector for
the government. So, it's logical that the edge given to IAS should be given to
us," says Jayant Misra, Income-Tax commissioner and general
secretary of IRS Association. In a 58-page-long memorandum to the
7th Central Pay Commission (CPC), which is now examining a pay like
for Central government employees, the IRS Association argued that
the primary reason for higher pay to the Indian Civil Service (ICS)
of the British era and its successor service, IAS, was that they were revenue
collectors. But now, the dynamics have changed, they claim.
IRS has argued that the net direct tax collection has grown 9.35 times
between 2000-01 and 2013-14, an impressive piece of statistics in the
backdrop of only 5.4 times expansion of GDP during the corresponding
period. Also, the cost of revenue collection in India is one of the
lowest in the world, which according to IRS officers is yet another
reason for demanding a good deal from the CPC. For every Rs 100 they
collect, the tax department spends merely 57 paisa. In percentage terms,
the cost of revenue collection in India is 0.57% as against 1.58% in
Japan, 1.35% in France, 1.17% in Canada and 1.05% in Australia.
Welcome to the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring before the Big Sarkari Pay
Hike. With a new pay scale for 36 lakh Central government employees, and
also pensioners, likely to come into effect from January 1, 2016, the
officers and non-gazetted staff of various services have been lobbying
hard to get a good deal from the 7th CPC. Unlike in the private sector,
the pay hike in government is a once-in-10-years-affair, making every
CPC, right from the first that submitted its report in 1947,a hugely
powerful agency. No doubt, government employees have to undergo an annual
appraisal process called Annual Performance Appraisal Report (APAR), but
that exercise is important only for promotion, and not for any pay hike.
Government employees do get a regular hike in dearness allowance, a
measure meant for offsetting inflationary pressure on their earnings, but
at the end of the day it is the CPC that fixes the bureaucrats' pay for
10 long years.
That's precisely why officers and staff of every service can't afford to
ignore the CPC. Constituted in February 2014 under the chairmanship of
retired Supreme Court judge Ashok Kumar Mathur, the 7th CPC has an
economist and two bureaucrats as its members. Most of the employees'
associations have already had at least one round of talks with the
Commission. And some are waiting for Round II.The Ripple EffectsA cursory
glance at the memorandum submitted by IPS Central Association on
behalf of Indian Police Service (IPS) will throw light on the importance
attached to a pay commission. The 137-page memorandum, a copy of which
was reviewed by ET Magazine, is well designed and comparable to any
standard report prepared by a global consultancy firm. PV Rama Sastry, an
Inspector General of Police at National Investigation Agency (NIA) and
secretary of IPS Central Association says the memorandum is
the result of intense in-house research, factoring in the macro
environment of growth, development, equity and justice vis-a-vis the role
of a police officer. Though Sastry is the spokesperson of 4,720 IPS
officers, the memorandum prepared by his team encompasses the role and
needs of 30 lakh police personnel across India out of which 10 lakh come
under the gamut of the pay commission. As the CPC recommendations are
often accepted by the state governments as well, the remaining 20 lakh
police personnel too may eventually benefit.
The IPS memorandum has quoted a number of reports to suggest that the
tough life of a cop justifies the demand for a fatter hike. For example,
it has quoted articles published in two journals — Global Journal of
Medicine and Public Health and International Journal of Pharma and
Bio-Sciences — to conclude that one of two cops in India suffers from
sleep disturbances and anxiety whereas chances of cardiovascular problems
increase by 38% after a person joins as a police officer.
Among other demands (see What it Expects), IPS wants better life and
health insurance cover, an overtime allowance and also a new perk called
allowance for "un-social" hours (for duty between 8 pm and 6
am).
Railway officers too cite round-the-clock work demands as a reason for
better salary. "A railway officer may be called to join duty any
time during the night. The pressure always remains as it's a 24x7
work," says RR Prasad, an Indian Railway Personnel Service officer
and secretary general of Federation of Railways Officers' Association.
The Indian Railways is a gigantic organisation with over 13 lakh
employees, 16,000 of whom are officers. Both the officers and staff
associations have made their representations to the 7th CPC. The officers
want non-gazetted staff to get their dues but they demand the proportion
of the pay of the lowest and the highestpaid employee should increase from
current 1:12 to 1:18.
To be sure, a formula towards pay parity has been the hallmark of
the last few pay commissions. A government entry-level peon now gets a
monthly pay of Rs 14,000, if dearness allowance is factored in.
Similarly, a mid-level government driver's monthly salary, including
allowances, is Rs 30,000, at least two times that of his counterpart in a
private sector company. And that's why the salary gap between the lowest
and highest paid government servant has drastically decreased over the
last three decades.
The pay commissions have also reduced the disparity among the officers
of various services. Till the late 1980s, an IAS officer used to receive
a salary that's 25% higher than that of a Group A service officer. Today,
the pay for all officers, at least at the entry level, is same. But IAS
and Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers still maintain an edge over
others as their empanelment process (a step to get higher posts) is much
faster.Balancing ActAn IPS officer can become a joint secretary to
government of India only two years after an IAS of the same batch can
reach that level. Similarly, there has been a nine-yearlong gap in joint
secretary empanelment between IAS and IRS, something many services claim is a continuation
of the British legacy. Today, IAS officers at the level of deputy
secretary and director at the Centre constitute about only 13% of the
total officers. But as the hierarchy goes up, the percentage of IAS
vis-a-vis others also rises. For example, 75% joint secretaries to
government of India belong to IAS and IFS, and the percentage of IAS and
IFS goes further up to 95 in case of government of India secretaries.
"The edge that the IAS has must continue. Why will a person join the
IAS after quitting a job in HSBC Bank if that edge is missing? IAS
officers have work experiences at Tehsil, sub-divisions, district, state
and Central government levels. We interact with the political executives
at all levels. IAS should remain a premium service," says Sanjay R
Bhoosreddy, a joint-secretary-ranked officer and secretary to IAS
(Central) Association.
On its part, the Indian Economic Service (IES) which has a cadre strength
of 511 officers, represented in 55 Central government departments, has
demanded parity in pay, perks and promotions of all services, including
IAS, so that the "officers deliver what they have been employed for
rather than fret over their pay and promotion prospects".
The question is how far the 7th CPC will go in changing the pay and
associated service conditions like empanelment and promotions. IAS
officers have pulled out a 1991 Supreme Court judgement (Mohan Kumar
Singhania and Others vs Union of India and Others) where it was said that
other services should not approach the pay commissions and attempt to
change the rules of career progressions and push for a case for parity
with the premier service. But other services are continuing their demand
for pay parity and also for the creation of more departments where the
IAS can't dictate. At present, only three major ministries — railways, external
affairs and post — are not headed by IAS but run by their own cadres. Now,
IPS wants a new department of internal security headed by a cop and IRS
wants a separate direct tax department headed by a taxman.
Will the 7th CPC venture into such nuances? Or will it, like the past few
pay commissions have, adopt a simple formula of Multiplier 3 under which
the basic salary is hiked by three times or more depending on the
economic health of the nation. If that is the case, it won't be too
hazardous to make a prediction: A secretary to government of India will
get a basic monthly salary (excluding DA) of Rs 2.4 lakh (current basic
salary multiplied by three) and the cabinet secretary Rs 2.7 lakh
from January 1, 2016. And, yes, perks, DA and other allowances will be
extra.
