The Government of India has decided on 26th June, 2018 ‘to
discontinue overtime allowance given to its employees, except in certain
categories like industrial employees, according to an order issued by the
Personnel Ministry.’ a news item in The
Hindu dated 27th June says. This is based on the recommendation
of the 7th Central Pay Commission. It seems that this allowance was being doled out to even
under secretaries of the government. Too bad a precedence which needed
correction considering that only lower level employees, basically the wage
earners, normally get paid overtime. The same newspaper also mentions that ‘PM’s security to be
beefed up ahead of 2019 polls’. Naturally, this is likely to increase the cost
to the exchequer. True, a PM’s security is important for the country despite
the startling fact that the security available to us as ordinary citizens of the country
is almost zero, and the
contention of some doubting Thomases whether he deserves any higher security
which is not available to the ordinary citizens. But, it leads to the questions
I raised in my earlier post: whether a Prime Minister shall indulge in
political campaign, and that too with beefed up security resulting in even higher costs to the
exchequer?
While the move to reduce the
overtime for government employees is in
the right direction in order to reduce
costs of the government, there may be or there are lots of areas where costs of
running the government machinery (both at the centre and state levels)have to
be closely looked at.
1.Too much of entourage with
ministers (state as well central)while travelling to attend various
functions/events. One usually sees a convoy of state cars on a minister’s trip.
2.Government functionaries(like
police constables in Kerala) being used for duties other than designated for.
In Kerala, we always complain about paucity of police personnel to be employed
in law and order requirements.
3.The travel and communication
expenses of ministers and legislators borne by the government.
4.Government officials usually
use high end cars for official travel. In a country where capital is scarce and
where there is a need to conserve capital and reduce costs, why don’t we
think of subscribing to simplicity? Why
we have no Manik Sarkars as CMs and PM across India?
5.Whenever new ministers take charge,
they spend a lot of money in refurbishing
the official residences and replace the furniture and other equipments.
6. There are any number of
wasteful expenditures incurred by the government, the list of which will be too
long.
