The State government’s ordinance of March 1991 banning new post creation in public sector badly needs a review. The primary objective of the ordinance was to curtail Govt. expenditure on salary and allowances component. Unfortunately, the very objective was defeated when it was none else but the law makers who violated the government’s standing order on countless fronts.
There’s no denying the fact that the last 15 years’ ban order instead of doing good bred such evils like nepotism, favoritism, bribery and cheating. The retrograde decision too had its toll on increasing unemployment, irrational distribution of man-power and failure to generate capacity even where the needs are in dire strait in some new offices.
The ban order gave something like a safety valve to people in high places who resorted to appointing only their near and dear ones so much so that some offices are crowded with people from one clan or family circle. May be these people think they alone have the right to feed their stomach. It has also become a convention that when an incumbent retired or died another member from the same family is appointed, thereby making the post hereditary. There are instances where, even technical posts are filled up by non-technical people. Vacancies, especially those of grade III & IV, are seldom advertised.
None can deny either that appointment through the back-door has become the greatest tool for politicians. There are people who even have the misconception that post vacancies are party property. There are also instances where post vacancies are sold at exorbitant price.
Equally important issue is the appointment of contingency staff in astronomical numbers. What is most deplorable is the manner in which such appointments are made without second thought on humanitarian considerations. To cite an example, a father of four children is appointed as contingency staff with a fixed salary of Rs. 1500/- P.M. If this staff is demanded to come to duty everyday, one can easily draw an inference whether he can manage his family with such meager salary in these days of high living cost.
Interestingly however, many such contingency appointments are phantom appointments where the controlling officers enjoy the salary of the ghost employees. Another height of madness is the manner in which these people’s services are extended. Normally, their service extension comes two or three months late during which time these employees do not attend to duties in most cases. But extensions are given on continuation basis except for one day service break. So, these people get the arrear of two to three months without working. What a way to save Govt. money! Protocol hassle is the normal excuse as we know.
Such evils being the order of the day one may not be wrong to say the new appointments made during the last 15 years may have exceeded the number prior to the ban order. For the interest of the future generation it may not be totally a futile exercise to go into the details of appointment during these 15 years. With the Right to Information (RTI) Act in place now it shouldn’t be a big hurdle to gather such information. For a start it may not be out of place to say the NSF can take the lead for startling revelations.
It’s also high time the Govt. retrospect on the ramification of such anti-people decision and take forward the State in all directions. Give chance to new blood and new talents. The best and wisest way to do that would be to ‘lift the blanket ban on new post creation’.
Dr. K. Hoshi
