As expected, the sixth pay commission is announced and being implemented. This would result in a hike of around 40% in pay for the fifty-five odd lakh employees of India. It sounds too good. However, if one is intelligent enough to ask where from the funds would come, and then he must be an idiot. It is an unwritten rule that in a year of election such questions are not asked.
I do agree there were days that the government employees were paid far less as compared to the private sector. However, this is not the case now. With severe, un-healthy competition prevailing in the market, private organizations are no longer generous as our Government is in terms of distributing the pay. There may be one or two sectors that give a hefty pay, courtesy, huge supply-demand gap. Once this gap is reduced, entrepreneurs are not fools to just give away the money.
At the outset, I always fail to understand when a government cannot govern itself properly, how it can play a role of an employer. Can it do good business, which requires a bit of ruthlessness? If the government claims that they can do business and at the same time take care of people’s welfare, it sounds weird to me!
It is a good hike no doubt. This is too good that even private sectors would think twice, thrice to make such a decision. Courtesy, elections in the year ahead, the government had no choice but to implement this. Still, I listen to some whining noises that the pay is not on par with that of some of the private sector companies.
All those whiners should throw light on the following points before they complain:
- In a private sector, every employee is accounted for the bottom line.
- It is “Perform or Perish” in private sector. If one cannot contribute, they are fired immediately
- There is no job security in private sector
- One cannot take his place for granted
- One cannot come 5 minutes late even a single day.
- One cannot read magazines on the office desk during office hours.
- One cannot behave rudely with customers and walk away scott-free!
- One cannot use office equipments to take print-outs, surf websites, make personal STD calls etc.,
- There is no relaxed-working environment
- There are only 7 paid holidays in a year and if situation arises, they can be cancelled.
- It’s a six-day week and many a times it can be 7 day week also
- Recruitment is based on meritocracy only
- Promotions are not based on the years spent but on the contributions made
Perhaps, most of the government employee might not understand what is mentioned above or might pretend that they do not understand. It is the Government who is investing such huge money and they should be careful enough to ensure that the money is not squandered and returns are made.
Earlier, whenever bribing used to take place, the one excuse we heard was lesser pay. With the pay hiked to this extent, shall we expect these money guzzlers to stop accepting bribe? It is a bitter truth that nowadays one has to bribe an employee even to get his job done. Earlier it was given to get a job done out of the way. Having tasted the additional money, would they stop this bad practice? Time will tell us.
The loan-waiver, implementation of pay-hike, all these will certainly add burden to the common man but in an indirect manner. One is not sure, that the practice of bribing would get reduced if not eliminated or not. Had the government threw light on reducing the number of holidays, working for six days a week, strict timings of office, incentives based on performance – all these were suggested already – this would improve the performance. With no commitment from the employees, here the employer has given a hike hoping this will get translated into votes. This will cause more harm than good to the country. Will ever our politicians learn?
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