A K Bhattacharya: Downsizing bureaucracy

RAISINA HILL

Over 10 years, the actual reduction in the number of government employees is just 10,000.

Serious thinking on downsizing bureaucracy had begun in the early 1990s. A sub-group set up by the Planning Commission had suggested in 1993 that the Union government should weed out at least 2,000 senior-level positions in various ministries. The Fifth Pay Commission also had recommended that while salaries could go up, there should also be a net reduction in the number of employees. Then, there was the Geethakrishnan Committee that recommended the winding up of several government departments. None of these recommendations, however, received any serious consideration by the government. Worse, public policy debates have ceased to focus on the need for downsizing bureaucracy.

But take a look at the number of civilian employees in Central ministries over a 10-year period, you might start believing that the government has been quietly working towards downsizing bureaucracy. In March 1997, the total number of employees (excluding the armed forces) was estimated at 38.27 lakh. This number is expected to decline to 34.08 lakh by March 2007. That is a reduction of about 4.2 lakh employees over a period of 10 years.

This decline, however, should be no cause for celebration. If you take the Fifth Pay Commission's goal of reducing the number of employees by 3 per cent annually (after taking into account the natural attrition rate), the government is nowhere near that target. Going by that objective, the total number of Central government employees should have been somewhere around 28.4 lakh by March 2007. In its defence, though, the government might still argue that at least the total number of employees has declined, never mind that this reduction is a little less than half of what it should have achieved.

Does that argument hold water? Take a close look at what contributed to the 4.2 lakh drop in the strength of government employees, you will see how hollow the government's claim could be. Of the 4.2 lakh fall in numbers, as many as 4.09 lakh employees got out of the government rolls because of decisions taken to hive off departments into independent public sector bodies. Thus, over 3.64 lakh employees showing under the department of telecommunications got transferred to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited that was created in October 2000 as a state-owned enterprise. Similarly, about 45,000 employees that were showing under the ministry of information and broadcasting got transferred to Prasar Bharati by the late 1990s. So, the real gain in terms of reduction in employees' strength is almost insignificant at less than 10,000 over a 10-year period.

This is not to suggest that no department within the government made any attempt at reducing its workforce. Indian Railways, which continues to be treated as a government department, will reduce its staff strength by 1.35 lakh, bringing it down to a proposed 14.5 lakh by March 2007. Similarly, the Department of Posts has trimmed its workforce by 63,000 over the 10-year period and expects its strength to decline to 5.32 lakh by March 2007. There are other ministries also which have reduced their employees' strength. For instance, the ministry of water resources has cut its staff strength by 15,000, the ministry of urban development by 10,000, and the ministry of finance by 8,000 over the 10-year period.

So, who has hired more in this period to neutralise the good work done by the Indian Railways, the Department of Posts and three other ministries? Well, the home ministry has done the maximum damage by adding two lakh more people in the police forces, which will raise their strength to 7.84 lakh by the end of March 2007. Other ministries like those of atomic energy and external affairs have also added more people, but these are very small numbers.

The point is that the aggregate numbers of government employees, which seem to be on the decline, do not tell the whole story. Since reducing the size of the government does not seem to be figuring in any specific ministry's agenda now (the last time one heard of this was when Yashwant Sinha spoke of this in his Budget speech in 2001), the prime minister's office, itself, should take upon itself the task of looking closely at each ministry's staff strength and see what kind of reduction can be effected over a specified period of time. If Indian Railways, the Department of Posts and a few other ministries could make a beginning in this direction, there is no reason why other ministries also cannot adhere to the target of reducing their staff strength by 3 per cent every year.