Letters: Merely a gimmick

While I agree with the editorial, "Containing compensation" (November 23) that the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission seem moderate at the macro level, the fact is that previous such panels and governments were happy to dole out the largesse and use it as a tool to please a large section of employees.

As the editorial rightly points out, the 7th Pay Commission appears to have ignored factors such as role and responsibility, performance, accountability and value creation in determining pay hikes.

While these factors are considered critical in several public and private organisations, this does not seem to have happened in government jobs. In fact, the same story is repeated from one commission to the next.

The 7th Pay Commission should have talked about or recommended a comprehensive performance management process that defines, assesses and rewards performance and contribution to larger goals. These include organisational, team and individual goals. A detailed performance evaluation process should be followed by a compensation plan, a substantial portion of it linking incentives to performance.

Then there is the issue of 'invisible' compensation, in other words, corruption, which yields unaccounted-for income. Is there a systemic response to try and curb this?

Without concrete changes, the pay commission exercise will remain a gimmick, hardly designed to incentivise and motivate the bureaucracy to meet the aspirations of the nation.

Siddharth Dhar Pune

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