Drinking water to economic affairs, key departments work with least staff

There is a strange dichotomy in the staff strength of central government departments. Key departments, such as economic affairs in the finance ministry or the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, which is responsible for the Swachh Bharat campaign, often employ the least number of people in executive positions, while some others are positively bloated.    

Latest data (September, 2018) from the department of personnel and training show that this trend has deepened. The numbers do not include support staff like clerks, data assistants or others in the ministries. 

Take the Department of Fertilisers: It has 61 people in executive positions to determine how the annual fertiliser subsidy cheque will be divided among companies. As opposed to this, the Department of Financial Services has only 38 such posts, even though it is responsible for overseeing government-run banking and insurance companies as well as determining policies for a sector grappling with the massive problem of non-performing assets.

Similarly, the Department of Culture has 74 posts of directors, under secretaries and section officers — the same number as that in the Department of Civil Aviation. However, while the numbers for the department of culture do not include archaeologists and other experts, those for civil aviation include executives in the directorate general of civil aviation as well.   

In the government’s scheme of doing business, policies for each department are framed by ministers based on inputs provided by the departmental secretaries and joint secretaries. The officers junior to them, who roughly correspond to the middle management levels in the corporate sector, ranging from directors at the top to slightly junior deputy secretaries, under-secretaries and section officers, are supposed to flesh out the details of the cabinet note for their departments to execute.

However, important departments have learned to live with far fewer staff than their workload merits. The Cabinet secretariat has only 33 officers, the Department of Economic Affairs has 50, legal affairs has 38 while renewable energy makes do with 42. Ironically, most of the departments responsible for executing major government programmes make do with a slim staff strength. 

There are some departments that have historically been large. These include the Departments of Defence, Home Affairs, and Expenditure in the finance ministry. 

But coming up just behind them are such populous departments as personnel and training at 262 and information and broadcasting at 214. The figures for the latter do not include the staff of Prasar Bharti Corporation. Again, though Ayushman Bharat was launched only last month, the staffing pattern at the department of health and family welfare shows it had 263 posts already. This begs the question as to whether there is any rationale for keeping such an army of officers in departments that are clearly under-worked.

The government’s rationale for deciding the number of senior management officials in each department has little to do with administrative needs. It is based on two factors — the budget the department oversees, and the staff strength of the department. So departments with large staff strength can often make a persuasive case for expanding the number of officials at the top. While the practice had eased up in the past couple of decades, clearly, old habits persist.