Rewarding the inefficient

 

 

Hear it from the horse’s mouth, as the saying goes. Pressed for an answer about how many of the state government’s workforce he would really consider efficient, Charan Deka, the person who in the 1980s turned Assam’s Sadou Asom Karmachari Parishad (SAKP) into a force that could bring the state to a grinding halt, has a simple reply: “More than 50 percent”. That though took a backseat as Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi recently announced a double whammy for Assam’s bloated babudom: an increase in the retirement age from 59 to 60, and 6 per cent dearness allowance, the highest ever paid so far—along with a promise that the government would set up a pay commission to consider the 4.5 lakh strong force’s longstanding demand that their salaries be brought on a par with that of central government employees.

In a state where nothing really surprises anyone anymore, reaction to the bonanza was quite the expected. “This is being done with an eye on the panchayat elections,” said former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, the man responsible for getting the state its special “90 percent grant, 10 percent loan” status from the Centre. The state is expected to elect new panchayats some time in December this year. The latest sop will meanwhile cost the state Rs 9 crore a month. As for the raise in retirement age, the move will now only help maintain the bloat that was being trimmed with a recruitment ban imposed in 1996. “Many more people would have retired this year had the change not been made,” says Deka. The ban had helped bring down staff load by about 30 percent.

The ruling Congress expectedly has denied the charge of doling out sops on election eve. “These are welfare measures and no one should be complaining about them,” said Rajesh Joshi, party spokesperson. “Everybody has a right to live with dignity and peacefully.”

All talk of fiscal discipline aside, the government, cannot ignore its workers no matter what the efficiency rate—at least not in an election year.