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From Govt Babus to Public Servants – The transformation is yet to happen
Highlights
The Department of Personnel and Training is the only cadre controlling (please read these words) wing for the Civil Servants – meaning only those employees who were appointed through UPSC civil services exam.
The Department of Personnel and Training is the only cadre controlling (please read these words) wing for the Civil Servants – meaning only those employees who were appointed through UPSC civil services exam.
They are a class apart from those appointed through Staff Selection Commission (SSC). The employees appointed through SSC are a class apart from other cadres. Thus we have got different classes of employees on the rolls of Govt of India.
For Govt of India the Ministry of HRD refers only to the tasks related to funding the UGC, AICTE, IIMs, IITs, NITs, IIITs, etc. The Govt of India had resolved long ago that the definition of HRD in GoI parlance is to fund certain institutions and formulate education related polices.
The Dept of Personnel and Training is the only department that takes care of all personnel matters and the training. This is in a nutshell the attitude of Govt of India towards its human resources (the Employees on the rolls of GoI). With this kind of an approach it is difficult to visualize any value addition from the employees of GoI and they will continue to get paid, promoted and rewarded only based on the so called established norms of department of Personnel and Training.
Sad that the BJP govt too has fallen in to this trap by not redesigning the Ministry of HR. Ministry of HR is the new name given to the told tasks as stated above for funding the educational institutes and formulating policies related to education and research. When we do things the way we have been doing we get the same results that we have been getting. BJP has already missed the pristine time of 18 months. The 7th Pay Commission is now talking of performance based incentive!! Who shall administer this and when are the Performances Goals to be set, who and who will they assess the performance and who ensures objectivity? What kind of ERP is needed for creating master data for each and every employee on the rolls of Govt of India?
Today when we look at the following figures it is unbelievable that we have been paying the salary and pensioin and do not pay attention to accoutability of each govt employee, since six decades!! What a callous way of governing a second most populous Nation!!!!
“A peon’s starting salary has gone up by 2.54 times to Rs 18,000 per month and topmost bureaucrat, the cabinet secretary would now draw Rs 2.5 lakh per month plus other perks costing a total of Rs 1,02,000 crore to the exchequer. Financial impact of implementing recommendations will be Rs 1.02 lakh crore – Rs 73,650 crore to be borne by Central Budget and Rs 28,450 crore by Railway Budget.
Total impact of Commission’s recommendation to raise the ratio of expenditure on salary and wages to GDP by 0.65 percentage points to 0.7 per cent”
All Indians pay for the services they get from the Govt of India a whopping sum of 1.02 lakhs crores every year. What is the value added to the common man and the nation at large is unknown!! This is the kind of system we have and the BJP govt is happy to continue this most irresponsible governing system. A Govt of India job offers the most unique feature called “I am not responsible or accountable for any thing and for any service and yet get extra money just like that”. The power of being a Govt Babu is beyond explanation.
Imagine we automate many services like income tax collection and all other revenue collection processes along with permission seeking and obtaining processes, to the extent of 100% and give one year holiday with no pay for the Govt of India employees we would have had no negative impact on this nation and we would have saved 1.02 lakhs crores of rupees in one year. As a person I do not get any service from any central govt employee directly nor do I need to see any central govt employee for leading my life. Therefore the value addition that I see from the Central Govt Employee is zero. Imagine a farmer who does not pay Income Tax the impact he gets is nothing from various central govt services. The role of AIR and DD are limited only to airing free programs and the BSNL gets paid for its services like any other service provider. The role of Postal Dept is reduced drastically. This is how a common man feels after reading the annual paybill of the Central Govt Employees!!
We had enough of the colonial influence and the Govt Employees are yet to shed the habit of looking down a common man and start respecting him/her as his /her employer. Unfortunate that the training programs being organized by Dept of Personnel and Training are yet to make this shift in the behaviour of the Central Govt Employees. In other words the relevance of this department is zero for the common man. We need work processes that are going to eventually add value to the life of a common citizen. We need thoroughly a new orientation towards service delivery for the common citizen with meticulous and objective way of fixing accountability for each central govt employee starting from Peon to Principal Secretary.
For this the Govt of India needs a Unique ERP with unique HR module. I visualize a scenario where a common man can see a dash board that shows the performance of govt of India and each State Govt. This dash board simplifies the net impact of the governance and translate it into public services being provided against the expenditure being made. A citizen shall be able to drill down to his panchayat level to find the performance on social, financial, environmental, heath and sanitation, agriculture, etc., accounts. This is the ultimate goal of IT and smart governance goal for India. This is possible and this is the only way to bring in change.
Needless to say that the Govt of AP has already started using the dashboard for sharing the performance of the government. It is a welcome change and this needs to be further strengthened. Here is the link:
We need to enable common man to use internet and tablets by making them more simplified with voice search facilities that can recognize the voice in vernacular language. IT can really transform the way people use government services and the govt interacts with people.
Dr. IVNS Raju
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