Taxmen want corporate salaries
Encouraged by an unprecedented 40% growth in direct tax collections, the income tax officials have sought salaries at par with corporate sector from the Sixth Pay Commission.
"In order to have the best minds in public sector the pay scales and perquisites should be at par with private sector" income tax employees said in their representation to the pay commission, which is expected to submit its report to the government early next year.
Referring to high salaries of tax officials at international level, the IT department officials said though a well-paid bureaucracy may not eradicate corruption, it would certainly remove the perceived feeling of discrimination.
"There is no full neutralisation in respect of HRA anywhere in the country" the IT officials said. They have also reportedly asked that annual confidential reports be made open documents.
Sources said over 60 Class-I officials have already left the IT Department, which is facing shortage of staff due to restrictions on recruitment and unremunerative salary packages in comparison to the private sector.
The officials who left government service to join private consultancy firms or corporates are earning more than double the salaries then their counterparts in the department.
Although Finance Minister P.Chidambaram has announced one per cent incentive to the tax employees out of tax collections over and above the budget target, and said over 7000 posts would be filled, the IT Department is losing revenue due to shortage of competent staff, the source said.
They said though government is ready to pay better salary packages to the tax employees, it will wait for the recommendations of the Pay Commission.
Since it was hopeful to surpass the budget target of tax collection at the Rs.548000 crore in 2007-08, it would not find it difficult to pay high salaries to attract better talent in the tax department, they said.
Voice of a concerned Employee
If the pay is low, there are several reasons - low performance, low accountability and high corruption. I'm a Gr.B officer in the (infamous) Central Excise and Customs Dept. and my personal experience is that on an average almost 90% of employees in the service - from Gr.A to Gr.D, are corrupt i.e. they have accepted some kind of illegal monetary or other gratification at some points of their service life, influencing their working or affecting revenue collection. What is most worrisome are the attitude of the new IRS officers. In a recent batch of IRS officers only two among the 24 or so new recruits posted in my area has any sort of integrity. A few of them in fact openly cite the high investiment they had to do in order to make to this grade, to justify their actions. Direct recruit Inspectors are no better with 99% of them resorting to corruption within 5 years of their joining.
The second problem is the lack of performance. It is well known that in the govt. sector, the person who works better is made to work more. Ultimately this results in some people getting away without doing any work while others are over burdened. This is mostly the problem in the cadres of Group B and below. Among the Group A officers this problem exists, albeit in a different manner because it does not affect the fellow Gr. A officers but those below him/her. It is said that Gr.A officers get salary for taking decisions because they are not supposed to work in the field level. Often many officers actually shy away from taking decisions - either by dilatory tactics or by making the junior officers put up proposals and only countersigning the same. In case of trouble I have seen many Gr.A officers escape responsibility saying that the lower rank officer misled them. Giving verbal directions to lower level officers and juniors is another way of shrugging off responsibility. Some of them take particular exception if a lower ranking officer subsequently try to get a written order. Gradually this adversely affects the sincere workers, who get the impression that they are being penalized for working hard, particularly since there is no effective carrot and stick policy for good/bad work.
As always, the level of accountability in a govt.organization is much less for all grades of officers compared to their private counterpart. The ACRs have ceased to be an effective instrument, except perhaps at the Gr.A level where it is often used for vindictive purposes.
All these issues prevent a govt. dept from performing at its optimum level. More officers are required to do the job which could have been done with much less. The lack of performance means delay in fulfilling the targets and the sincere workers getting dejected due to work pressure and lack of any effective system of accountability, rewarding a good performance and penalizing bad performance.
Similarly, although internally everyone knows who is an honest officer and who is not, there is no effective mechanism to give boost to honesty and punish the corrupt. The present system of passive vigilance administration has lost its edge due to its misuse or inertness. The overall depressing scenario and all pervading corruption has led to many once-honest officers resorting to corruption after working many years of service with integrity.
Thus, it is not only the pay structure that is needed to be improved. Nor will a sole emphasis on pay boost the performance in the government sector. Instead of a pay commission, there is need to set up a Government Services Reforms Commission to investigate and address the core problems and find a long term solution and the pay related issues could be one of the terms of reference of such a Commission.
Financial Express estimates 150% hike in pay
A news article of the Financial Express predicts 150% hike in the salary of Government Employee by Sixth Pay Commission.
Fine points of the reports are :
* Pay Commission expected to submit its report next week.
* Basic salaries are likely to rise by over 150%
* Section officers will get a starting basic salary of Rs 20000, while their department heads, joint secretaries, would get a fixed basic salary of Rs 60000 a month.
* Secretaries to the government would earn a fixed salary of Rs 75000 a month. A cabinet secretary’s monthly salary would also be fixed at Rs 80000.
* Government officials will continue to retire at 60 years and will now retire on December 31 of the year they reach age 60.
CPC report dissapoints employees
Now that the Sixth Pay Commission report is submitted to the Government and the complete report is available at http://www.india.gov.in/govt/paycommission.htm, at least wait time for report is over. Only implementation part is required. Now since every point is clear, reading the comments in this blog, it seems that most of Central Government Employees are not satisfied with the report. Most of the Group C & D employee are feeling let down. Only Senior class A officers got good pay, but even that is very small compared to corresponding Private Sector pay packaets of Senior Managers/MDs. There are many shocker in report for employess.
Even media, which till yesterday was making noise about increase in the pay in the range of 40%-60% is now realising that the actual increase is much less than that. Times of India , Dainik Jagran and Indian Express have come up with stories of this nature in today's edition.
Full Download:
6th CPC Report | Annex
Allowances
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Recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay Commission relating to eligibility for encashment of leave
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Family Planning Allowance
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Caretaking Allowance
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Travelling Allowance Rules
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Conveyance Allowance under SR 25
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Recommendations Relating to LTC
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Special Allowance for Child Care, Women with Disabilities and Education Allowance for Disabled Children of Government Employees
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Enhancement of the Quantum of Maternity Leave and introduction of Child Care Leave in respect of Central Government Employees
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Grant of increased rate of Washing Allowance to common categories of Group 'C' and 'D' Employees of various Ministries/Departments
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Applicability for revised Group 'D' Pay Scales to Casual Labourers with Temporary Status
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Allowances including New DA, HRA, etc.
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Grant of Children Education Assistance and Reimbursement of Tuition Fee
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Central Secretariat (Deputation on Tenure) Allowance and Grant of Deputation (Duty) Allowance
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Training Allowance and Sumptuary Allowance
Decision of the Government on Sixth Central Pay Commission Recommendations:
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Resolution containing Government's decision on Sixth CPC Report
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CCS (Revised Pay) Rules 2008
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IAS (Pay) 2nd Amendment Rules, 2008
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Office Memorandum
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Clarifications on CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008
Relating to Pensioners
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Resolution containing Government's decision on Sixth CPC Report
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Office Memorandum - For Pre-2006 Pensioners
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Office Memorandum - For Post-2006 pensioners
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Grant of Dearness Relief to Pensioners/Family Pensioners (Dated 12-09-2008)
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