Seventh Pay Commission may bring pay parity in civil servants, officers up in arms
Officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the top rung of the
country's bureaucracy, are up in arms after rumours that the Seventh Pay
Commission could bring about parity between them and other civil servants who
are lower down in the civil service hierarchy.
Associations of IAS officers have held several formal and informal
meetings to weigh options before them to thwart any attempt to whittle away at
the advantages they now enjoy over others by virtue of securing top grades in
the civil services exam.
Nearly 200 young IAS officers have so far submitted
their representations to Cabinet secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha, the country's
top bureaucrat, and to the central IAS officers' association, airing serious
concerns over the reported move by the pay panel towards salary parity and
doing away with the IAS edge in what is known as empanelment."I was
astonished to see media reports on the proposals towards parity between the
services, which is nothing but an attempt to equate the gold medallist with last-benchers.Such
proposals not only go against the principles of competition but also penalise
top performers in the name of parity," said 1993 batch IAS officer on
condition of anonymity .
Top-ranked students in the civil services exam are assigned the IAS and
Indian Foreign Service, followed by other branches such as the Indian Police
Service (IPS) and the Indian Revenue Service (IRS). Empanelment refers to the
selection of officer to a post which has the rank of joint secretary in the
central government. The next step could be a petition by the Central Indian
Civil and Administrative Association, the lobby group of IAS officers, to the
cabinet secretary, who is also an IAS officer.
Sanjay Bhoosreddy, the honorary secretary for the association, told ET that
over 100 IAS officers have expressed anguish with his grouping so far about the
reported recommendations of the pay panel which is due to submit its report by
the end of this year. "The key concerns of the junior IAS officers pertain
to emoluments and losing edge in empanelment," he said.For years, officers
from branches such as the IPS and IRS have complained that they do not make it
to the rank of joint secretary in the same numbers that IAS officers do, and
that their salaries are lower than those of IAS officers despite working on
equally complex assignments. There are some 4,800 IAS officers across India. TS
Krishnamurthy , an IRS officer who went on to become the Central Election
Commissioner, argued that handing non-IAS officers a permanent handicap is
not such a good idea.Instead, after some length of time, all those in the
All-India Services should be treated equally . "I had a disadvantage;
every time I had a handicap of two years and I feel no reason why there should
be differentiation after 18 or 20 years," he said.
N Jaya Prakash Narayan, a bureaucratturned-politician and founder of Lok
Satta Party , said the need of the hour is far-reaching reform instead of
cosmetic changes in the Indian administrative services. "The government
should seriously look at making bureaucracy an instrument for change through
specialisation, competition, incentive to perform and autonomy ," he
said.
"While we are recruiting some of the best people through a rigorous
competitive examination, there is a widespread perception that the country is
not getting best out of them over a period of time irrespective of which
service they belong to."
Source:- http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/
