Justice Ashok Kumar Mathur, chairman of the Seventh Pay Commission, tells ET Magazine in
an exclusive interview that he was up against various demands from all
the services. And that he tried hard but couldn't succeed in bringing
Commission member Vivek Rae on board before recommending an end of IAS
supremacy. Edited excerpts:
As
the Seventh Central Pay Commission (CPC) report reflects, there were
serious differences between you and one member of the Commission on key
issues such as IAS retaining its edge over other civil servants. Why did
you fail to build a consensus?
We had a consensus in most of our recommendations barring maybe a couple
of them. It is a 900-page report. In most of the recommendations, there
was total consensus. As far as equalising the IPS (Indian Police
Service) and IFoS (Indian Forest Service) with IAS (Indian
Administrative Service) was concerned, one member of the Commission gave
a dissent note. Look, IPS and IFoS are all-India services like that of
an IAS. The statistics will tell you how challenging their job is. Many police and forest officers get killed in operations. So, why not giving the same pay and promotion avenues to them?
But
finally one member Vivek Rae gave a long dissent note arguing for
status quo. Why could you not build a consensus so that it would have
been easier for the government to take a call in implementing your
recommendation?
I tried to convince Vivek Rae. He is a former secretary to the
government of India and has very long experience in the government. When
I could not convince him, we decided I and the two members would put
our arguments separately.Let the government take the final call. I felt
that there is a lot of angst among civil servants across services
against the IAS and their superiority. Even the other member Rathin Roy
had a similar view. We noticed in our interactions that the non-IAS
officers were peeved at the way the colonial hangover of Indian Civil
Service (ICS later became IAS) still remains. IAS Association told us
that we should not go beyond recommending the pay structure. But we
found that many service matters are actually interlinked to pay. Non-IAS
officers don't get promotions on time, and that has a bearing on their
pay. Earlier pay commissions too looked into the matter, but I decided
to call a spade a spade. I sensed the IPS, IFoS and other Group "A"
services were really agitated about the way they were discriminated in
promotion. I thought this needs to end. After all, if most bureaucrats
belonging to various services remain unhappy, it will impact governance.
So, I recommended there should be no discrimination.
The
Pay Commission is going to put a huge burden on the state exchequer.
Did you take into account the possible burden on the government finances
when you decided on a pay hike?
Of course, we did. That's why we could not make everyone happy. Everyone
wanted a huge hike. Revenue Service officers, for example, wanted a
huge hike because the revenue collection was going up. But we did not go
by their argument. It's their job (to get more revenues), I said. There
were many other demands from all services. We can't give everything to
everyone. If we conceded, the government of India will go bankrupt. Even
then, if our recommendations are accepted as they are, the government
will need `1,02,100 crore. That's a huge burden.
If I ask you about one or two recommendations that you were very satisfied with, what would those be?
Our recommendation on the pension for defence personnel is a very
satisfying one. We prepared a matrix that takes care of the need of the
defence personnel who have been demanding OROP (One Rank One Pension).
Also, we recommended a level playing field among all civil servants
after the completion of 17 years in service. When they are eligible to
be joint secretaries in the government of India, there should be a
transparent screening process so that only the brighter lot gets
selected. Another highlight of our report is that we rationalised
allowances. Never before have allowances been scrutinised the way we
did. Out of 190, we found many were outdated. They outlived their
utilities. Why should anyone have a `5 haircutting allowance? We have
either abolished those or merged with other allowances.
Armed forces officers are not very happy with the recommendations...
We only stopped free-food allowances in peace areas, that too only for
officers, not for jawans (for PBOR, i.e. Personnel Below Officer Rank).
But overall we gave them a very good deal. Armed forces personnel will
now get a pay much higher than their civilian counterparts. For them,
there is no deduction for future pension (unlike other civil
servants). We also increased their MSP (military service pay). I myself
visited Siachen and witnessed the hardship faced by the armed personnel.
We have liberally increased high-altitude allowances. I feel very sad
to hear that many of them are still not happy.
Any regrets?
It's Dil Maange More for everyone in the government. I wish I could make everyone happy.
Source:-The Economic Times
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